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balsamic vinegar food peppers pineapple pork red onion video

sweet and sour pork

I’ve been trying video recipes again. Sadly not at the luxurious Food@52 kitchens but in my own.

Freedom Food are asking for people to come up with a video recipe featuring Freedom Food ingredients and Fairtrade produce, so I’ve gone with pork and pineapple to recreate that Chinese takeaway classic, sweet and sour pork. It takes around ten minutes to cook and is really versatile – you can swap out the pork for chicken or fish, or even skip meat all together. Cubed tofu would be a tasty substitute. You can also serve it with the carb of your choice. I’ve gone with rice but it would be just as tasty with boiled noodles or even better, crispy noodles.

You can find this video for sweet and sour pork on my YouTube channel. If you’d like to vote for it in the competition, or enter yourself, go to the Freedom Food page.

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sweet and sour pork

Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 250 g rice
  • 1 vegetable stock cube
  • 2 Freedom Food boneless pork chops cubed
  • 1 teaspoon five spice
  • Pinch chilli powder
  • 1 tin Fairtrade pineapple chunks
  • 1 red pepper diced
  • 1 red onion sliced
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon cornflour

Instructions

  • Add the rice to a hot saucepan, and add twice the amount of boiling water and the stock cube. Cover and simmer.
  • Heat a pan over a medium heat. Toss the pork in the five spice and chilli, add a little oil to the pan and chuck in the pork. Stir fry for a minute or two until coloured all over, then remove the pork to a plate while you cook the everything else.
  • Add the peppers and onions to the frying pan and cook until tender. Add the pineapple and all it's juices, along with the balsamic vinegar. Add a splash of water to the cornflour, mix well and add to the pan. Bring to the boil then add the pork back in. Check for seasoning and keep cooking until the pork is cooked through. Serve with the rice.
Categories
bacon food halloumi pineapple prunes

devils on horseback and cheese & pineapple

Summoned to a classy 70s party, I was asked to provide some canapés and I do love a challenge. The host was some mean foodie himself, so I can’t just roll up with a tube of Pringles and Iced Gems. My mind starts grinding back to the old clichés: prawn cocktail, melon and ham, glacé cherries… a little browsing and I’ve got it. Abigail’s flashback Devils on Horseback. The idea sounds disgusting, wrapping stodgy prunes in bacon. But I hope with a few touches I can elevate them a bit. I marinate the tinned prunes overnight in whisky, then stone them. In the cavity I spoon mango chutney. Then they’re wrapped in bacon.

That can’t be it, need something else too. I’m sure there’s something I can do with cheese and pineapple but I can’t quite place it and I want a replacement for the pineapple. I decide to caramelise the pineapple based on an old Gary Rhodes recipe that I’d looked at often but never done. Taking inspiration from that I fry the pineapple in some port until ruby red, and then a little brown sugar to up the ooze. So that’s the pineapple done, what else? And then it’s obvious, a different cheese other than cheddar. I pick salty, waxy halloumi as a counterpoint to the sharp and sweet pineapple. Impale with cocktail sticks on to half a melon, and we’re away. I’m very pleased with the results. They certainly disappeared quick amongst the flares – congratulations to Jenny for getting the last one.
(I’d love pictures but foolishly they were eaten before I could snap!)
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