Sweet and Sour Pork Balls, Dim Sum Pork Dumplings with Chinese Chow Mein

Do you like Chinese food? Well we certainly do! That is why we decided to cook up a Chinese delight this Saturday night.

Out of all the dishes we used to order on a Saturday night before we started the marvel that is the fakeaway, was Dim Sum so this Saturday we thought we would give it a go.

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 Fakeaway 23 November 2013

 “Sweet and Sour Pork Balls, Dim Sum Pork Dumplings & Chinese Chow Mein”

 Total cost: £4.31 for a family of 4

Ingredients

All ingredients used were either supermarket own brands or the lowest price.

We calculated the cost of each of the ingredients separately by looking at the item’s total value, then working out what the amount we would need. For example, mixed herbs are £1.39 for 100g, for a 5g teaspoon full it would be 7p (£1.39/100 x 5 = 0.0695).

Dim Sum Pork Dumplings

1. Combine the plain flour and water and mix it with chop stick or fork until it starts to hold together. 
2. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for a good 5 minutes until it becomes an elastic dough.
3. Place in bowl and cover with cling film for minimum of 10 minutes.
4. In the meantime, mix the other ingredients (apart from the oil and water needed for cooking) in a bowl. 

5. After 10 minutes, turn out the dough onto a flat surface and roll it into a fat sausage. 
6. Cut the sausage into 12 equal size pieces, then roll onto balls.
7. Flatten the ball into a small pancake (you could use a dough cutter to make in a neater circle shape). 
8. Put two teaspoons of the filling in the centre of the pancake. 
9. Put a little water around the edge and fold the pancake in half, pulling the edges and pinching together.
10. Heat the oil to a pan and cook the dumplings for a few minutes until brown. 
11. Add 100ml of water to the pan, cover and reduce to simmer for 12 minutes, uncovering for the last 2 minutes.We cooked the Dim Sum before the Pork Balls and Chow Mein as we didn’t want to have too much cooking at the same time. Once cooked, we put them on a warm plate under a tea towel which kept them warm until everything else was ready.

Sweet and Sour Pork Balls

1. Add the pork, breadcrumbs and egg in a bowl. 
2. Mix and make into 20 small balls.
3. Heat the oil in a pan and cook the pork balls until the brown. As soon as the Pork Balls are cooking, start the Chow Mein.
4. Add the sugar, vinegar, tomato sauce and soy sauce to the pan with the balls, mix then heat for 5 minutes.
5. Mix the cornflour and water in a bowl and stir into the pan. 
6. Heat for 2 minute until thickened.

Chow Mein

1. Heat oil in a pan and thrown in the garlic and ginger until the garlic softens.
2. Add the cabbage and fry for a further 2 minutes.
3. Crack in the egg and quickly scramble.
4. Add the five spice and noodles and carry on frying for 4 to 5 minutes until heated through.

Voilà!

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The sweet and sour pork balls were really flavoursome but as I said in the beginning we were looking forward to the dim sum and they didn’t disappoint.

I’ll definitely be cooking these up in the future for dinner and the occasional lunchtime snack. They are so simple and easy to create.

Rather than using fresh breadcrumbs, if we ever have a crust that no one wants or bread that is not quite fresh, we blend them up and pop them in the freezer, making sure that we don’t waste any food.

If you enjoyed this recipe, do me a favour and please share it with your friends, work colleagues, the milk-person, mail-person, you get the idea.

I also tweet while cooking so why not follow me on Twitter (@SkintDad) then you can watch as we prep and cook each week too.

Lastly, if you are a lover of pork you definitely need to check out our recipe for slowed cooker pulled pork. It’s one of our most popular recipes on the site and I can’t disagree!