Saturday 15 February 2014

Sweet and Sour Pineapple Pork

Sweet and sour pineapple pork

Last week we made two evening meals in the slow cooker. The first of these was a sweet and sour pork from the Skinny Slow Cooker recipe book.

Preparation

I prepared this recipe on Tuesday morning, before I left for work. In retrospect, I should have had everything organised the previous night, because it took me a good 20 minutes. I didn't brown the pork first, which was recommended in the recipe, but I don't think it made much difference. In future, though, I will have everything ready just to switch the pot on in the morning. 

So, I coated about 900g of lean pork pieces in 1tbsp flour. Into the crock pot went: 1 onion chopped, 1 red pepper chopped (the recipe called for green, but we prefer red), and 2 carrots cut into batons. Add to this the meat, the juice from one large tin of pineapple, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp salt, 2tbsp lime juice and 1tbsp soy sauce. I added a small cup of water and mixed everything together. 

The recipe said to cook for 5 hours on low, so I left instructions for the au pair to switch the pot on at about 1pm, which she did. When I got home about 6:20 I added the chopped pineapple from the tin and put the machine to the "keep warm" setting. I just cooked a pot of rice to accompany. 

The Result

The sweet and sour pork had a good flavour, if a little mild. The sauce was quite thin and I am not convinced that the flour added anything. In future I might leave it out. Perhaps if I had browned the meat first, then coated in flour, it might have made a difference. The meat was very tender, and the pineapple still quite fresh. Overall, I was pleased with this and will make it again, probably with a few adjustments. 

The Verdict

The teenager quite liked it, though he was surprised at the pineapple - he's not used to pineapple except when it's just eaten as a fruit. He picked out all the onion, but that's quite normal. Otherwise he finished off everything. Ms Fussy Eater just had a plate of rice with some pork and carrots fished out of the pot. She hasn't been well recently and I didn't want to push things. She ate what she had on the plate, so that's a success. Hubby really liked the meal. Despite the recipe being for 6, we finished it all that evening between 5 of us. 


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