Deep-fried meats don’t have be crispy. If you know what you’re doing, you can use the cooking technique to create a range of textures. 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. 

Serves: 2 
Takes: 30 mins

INGREDIENTS 
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
½ tsp salt 
½ tsp Chinese five spice 
¼ tsp sugar 
1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry 
1 tsp sesame oil 
4 tbsp cornflour 

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

METHOD 

1. Use the back of your knife or cleaver to carefully bash the pork chops or steaks to tenderise the meat, then cut into 3-4cm pieces and put in a mixing bowl. Massage the marinade ingredients into the pork, adding the cornflour at the very end, and mix well. 

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

3. Build a wok clock to keep your ingredients organised. 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. Half-fill a wok with the vegetable oil and heat to 180C. Deep-fry the pork in two batches for 4-5 mins until golden-brown, then transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper.  

5. 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 heat and bring ½ tbsp of vegetable oil to a high heat until smoking hot. Add the ginger, garlic and spring onion to the wok and stir-fry for 30–60 seconds, then add the star anise and cinnamon stick. Add the sauce to the wok and bring to a vigorous boil. Once bubbling rapidly, add the fried pieces of pork and vigorously boil for a further 1-2 mins. Garnish with the coriander and serve.