home-cooked Chinese

One of the missionaries requested meatballs, sweet and sour meatballs. So Aaron took the suggestion and ran with it. He's got a handful of Chinese recipe books and was excited to use them. We made two dishes with lots of rice and some steamed asparagus on the side.

Lychee Pork
Company's Coming Chinese Cooking

• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 lbs pork tenderloin cut into small cubes
• cooking oil for frying
• 20 oz can of lychee* fruit with syrup
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp dry sherry
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch

-Stir flour and salt in medium bowl.
-Beat eggs with fork in small bowl.
-Dip pork in flour and then egg until coated.
-It said to deep-fry, but we just did a simple pan-fry, just making sure pieces were cooked all the way through. It will be fairly light colored because of the flour. Remove to paper towels to drain.
-Combine next 6 ingredients (lychee - soy sauce) in medium saucepan. Bring to boil.
-Stir water into cornstarch in small cup. Stir into lychee mixture until thickened. Pour over pork. Stir lightly until combined.

*Lychee is an incredibly sweet berry found in China and southeast Asia. We got our can at an Asian supermarket here in Calgary.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Hawaiian Meatballs
Joy of Cooking

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup soft bread crumbs moistened with milk (we used quick oats)
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp soy sauce

-Combine ingredients and form into 1-inch balls and saute in 2 tbsp vegetable oil until brown.
-We finished cooking in oven (about 15 minutes at 350) after pouring can of pineapple (chunks or tidbits) and sweet and sour sauce on top.

Sweet and Sour Sauce
Company's Coming Chinese Cooking

• 1/4 cup reserved pineapple juice (from can of tidbits)
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 3 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tbsp dry sherry
• 1 tbsp water
• splash of soy sauce (says Aaron)

Stir pineapple juice into cornstarch in small bowl. Add next four ingredients and stir.

Over all impression - excellent. I'm not even a big fan of Chinese food and it was pretty good. I wouldn't suggest making both recipes at the same time though, simply because they are both rather sweet (with the lychee and pineapple). The missionaries went back for seconds (and thirds) and almost left us with no leftovers.