Pork With Plum Sauce

I bought some plums on Saturday and made a chinese-style sauce to go with the leftover pork from Sunday's roast. Once again this doesn't fit into my healthy eating plan and it's not just because of the fatty meat. The plum sauce has quite a lot of sugar in it but it is always satisfying making a sauce that you usually find in a jar or a packet. I made some tomato ketchup last year and I think I enjoyed it all the more for the extra effort that had gone into making it.


Pork With Plum Sauce (serves 2)

400g roasted pork, shredded or diced (I used the rest of the belly I cooked on Sunday but you coould stir fry some diced lean for five minutes)
450g plums, halved and stones removed
110g caster sugar
100ml white wine vinegar
150ml cold water
1tsp grated ginger
2 red chillies, halved and seeds removed
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stick, finely chopped
1 tsp chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)
1 inch ginger, grated
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp cornflour, mixed with a little water
Egg noodles

1) First make the plum sauce. Put the plums, caster sugar, white wine vinegar, water and chillies in a saucepan, bring up to a merry simmer and cook for twenty minutes. The sauce won't be thick as you might expect but the cornflour will take care of that later. Now press through a sieve to get rid of the chillies and plum skin.
2) Now stir fry the carrot and celery in some groundnut oil for a couple of minutes. Then add the ginger and garlic and cook for a further minute. Add a teaspoon of rice wine and soy sauce and cook for another minute before adding the pork and about a third of the plum sauce (store the rest in the fridge. It'll last for a couple of weeks). You want enough sauce to come up just beneath the level of rest of the ingredients. Add the cornflour mix to the sauce and just warm through until thickened.
3) Meanwhile put the noodles on to boil for four minutes. Serve in bowls with the pork spooned over the top.

If you still enjoy the sort of chinese food you ate as a kid this is for you. As with apple sauce, this plum sauce works well with the fatty meat but it is rather sweet so it might not be to everyone's taste. As for the rest of the sauce you can use it with duck which I think it might be best suited to. Apologies for the picture. It doesn't make it appear very appetising!