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Sweet and sour pork usually uses cubed pork but this is a meatball version of sweet and sour pork. Onions in the meatballs give the meat more flavour and the sauce is not as strong as original Chinese sweet and sour pork.
Sweet and Sour Pork Meatballs
Prep Time
5 mins
Cook Time
10 mins
Total Time
15 mins
 

Sweet and sour pork usually uses cubed pork but this is a meatball version of sweet and sour pork. Onions in the meatballs give the meat more flavour and the sauce is not as strong as original Chinese sweet and sour pork.

Prep Time and Cook Time do not include the time to make pork meatballs.

Recipe Type: Main
Cuisine: Japanese
Serves: 2
Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)
  • ½ quantity of cooked meatballs used in the recipe Japanese Pork Meatballs with Two Sauces (note 1), hot or room temperature
  • 80 g (2.8oz) carrot, roll cut to 4cm (1½”) lengths (note 2)
  • 80 g (2.8oz) capsicum, cut into 3cm (1¼“) cubes
  • 80 g (2.8oz) boiled bamboo shoot, cut into 3cm (1¼“) wedges (note 3)
  • ½ onion , cut half horizontally, then wedges
  • 3 shiitake mushrooms (note 4), cut into quarter
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
Sweet and Sour Sauce
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp mirin
  • 2 tbsp sake (Japanese rice wine)
  • 2 tbsp rice vinegar
  • ½ tbsp tomato sauce (tomato ketchup)
  • ½ tsp chicken stock powder (optional)
  • 1 tbsp cornflour/corn starch mixed in 2 tbsp water
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
Instructions
  1. Boil carrots until just cooked through and drain.
  2. Put all the Sweet and Sour Sauce ingredients, except sesame oil, in a bowl and mix well.

  3. Heat oil in a wok or a large fry pan over medium-high heat.

  4. Add all the vegetables and stir fry until the edge and surface of the vegetables are slightly burnt – about 2-3 minutes.

  5. Add meatballs and stir for about 1 minute. Then add the sauce mixture. As the sauce heats up, it will get thicker.

  6. When the sauce starts boiling, add sesame oil, mix and turn the heat off.

  7. Serve immediately.
Recipe Notes

1. It uses 250g (8.8oz) of pork mince (ground pork) if you follow the recipe,  Japanese Meatballs (Niku Dango) with Two Sauces. Frozen meatballs can be used but you would need to thaw them and bring to the room temperature before cooking.

2. It is called rangiri (乱切り) in Japanese, meaning random cut. 

a. Place a whole carrot on the cutting board and cut the carrot straight down with a diagonal angle.

b. Then roll the carrot 90 degrees, facing the cut surface up.

c. Place the blade in the middle of the cut surface at the same diagonal angle, then cut down.

d. Repeat all way along the length of the carrot.

By changing the angle, you can make short or long pieces. Also see the photos in the blog.

3. You can buy boiled bamboo shoots in a vacuum sealed bag or a tin at Japanese/Asian grocery stores. You can also substitute for different vegetables or omit this and increase the quantity of other vegetable ingredients.

4. My shitake was about 30g (1oz) in total, 6 cm (2⅜”) in diameter. Depending on the size of each mushroom, you would need to cut into smaller/larger pieces.

5. It is important to cut the vegetables almost into similar sizes.