Sweet & Sour Meatballs Recipe

The recipe for the delicious sweet & sour meatballs is originated from Guangzhou, historically known as Canton, the capital of the chinese province Guangdong. As the sweet & sour meatballs recipe is quite simple, we had to cope with other difficulties. My kids are just crazy for meatballs whatsoever and while I fried the meatballs, half of them disappeared already. Junior food photographer Chocolate had problems to keep the camera still, one of his hands was craving for the tasty meatballs. Needless to say, that I was quite happy, while the food photography was done and the kids started to fight over the few leftover meatballs. As the result they had to eat their rice just with the sweet & sour sauce. Since that time sweet & sour meatballs has become one of the recipes, which are served most often in our house.

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Image: Sweet & Sour Meatballs

Recipe: Sweet & Sour Meatballs
Ingredients:
oil to deep-fry
500 g minced beef
1 small can pineapple
2 teaspoons brown cane sugar
5 tablespoons Teriyaki sauce
2 tablespoons black rice vinegar
2-3 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon Mirin
3-4 tablespoons Shao Xing rice wine
4-5 tablespoons tomato ketchup
100-150 ml water or asian chicken broth
1 small onion, finely minced
1-2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1-2 dried chili, pounded in a mortar or Gochugaru
1 teaspoon Szechuan (Sichuan) pepper, pounded in a mortar
freshly ground, black pepper
salt
1 teaspoon roasted white sesame seeds
1-2 spring onions to garnish

Preparation:
Drain the pineapple pieces and keep the syrup. We used about half of the pineapple for our recipe. Mix 3 tablespoons of Teriyaki sauce, pineapple syrup, cane sugar, soy sauce, Mirin, rice vinegar and tomato ketchup and put aside. Mix minced beef with the other 2 tablespoons of Teriyaki sauce, onion and garlic. If You want it more hearty, add a bit of soy sauce as well. Form meatballs of about 1,5 – 2 cm in diameter and deep-fry them until brown (deep fryer: 180° C about 3-5 minutes). Heat the sauce in a pot, add pineapple pieces, rice wine and water or chicken stock and let the sauce reduce a bit. Season with chili and szechuan pepper, add the fried meatballs and let them simmer for about 5 minutes. Garnish with spring onions and roasted sesame seeds and serve
with steamed Thai fragrant rice or Basmati rice.

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