Jeremy Pang’s Peking mandarin pork recipe

“Deep-fried meats don’t have to just be crispy,” says chef Jeremy Pang.

“In this dish, the sparing use of cornflour creates a crisped edge around each piece of pork, at the same time allowing it to soak up plenty of the moreish sweet and sour sauce.”

Peking mandarin pork recipe

Ingredients:
(Serves 2)

2 pork chops or shoulder steaks
½ thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 spring onion, cut into 2cm chunks
3 star anise
1 small cinnamon stick
Vegetable oil
Handful of coriander leaves, to garnish

For the marinade:
½tsp salt
½tsp Chinese five spice
¼tsp sugar
1tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry)
1tsp sesame oil
4tbsp cornflour

For the sauce:
½tbsp orange marmalade
100ml fresh orange juice
1tbsp rice vinegar
1tbsp plum sauce (or ketchup)
1tbsp light soy sauce
1tsp dark soy sauce
100ml chicken stock

Method

1. Carefully, using the back of your knife or cleaver, bash the pork chops or steaks to tenderize the meat, then cut into three to four centimetre pieces and place in a mixing bowl. Massage the marinade ingredients into the pork, taking care to add in the cornflour at the very end and mix well.

2. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.

3. Build your ‘wok clock’ (i.e. arrange your prepared ingredients on a plate before you cook, in the order you need them): Start at 12 o’clock with the marinated pork, followed by the ginger, garlic and spring onion, star anise and cinnamon stick, and lastly the sauce bowl.

4. Deep-fry the pork in vegetable oil in two batches at 180°C for four to five minutes until golden brown. Transfer the pork to a plate lined with kitchen paper.

5. If you used your wok for deep-frying, carefully pour out the oil into a heatproof bowl to cool and give your wok a quick wipe with kitchen paper. Place the wok back on the hob and bring half a tablespoon of vegetable oil to a high heat until smoking hot.

6. Add the ginger, garlic and spring onion to the wok and stir-fry for 30–60 seconds before adding the star anise and cinnamon stick. Next add the sauce to the wok and bring to a vigorous boil. Once bubbling rapidly, add the fried pieces of pork into the sauce and vigorously boil for a further one to two minutes. Garnish with coriander and serve.

Jeremy Pang’s School Of Wok: Delicious Asian food In Minutes is published by Hamlyn, priced £20. Photography by Kris Kirkham. Available now.