Táng Cù Wánzi are Chinese meatballs in sweet and sour sauce.
The sweet and sour sauce is known as: 糖醋汁 Táng cù zhī in Chinese, and it is a type of sauce mainly used in stir-fried recipes.
The main ingredient – in this case, pork meatballs – should be fried or stir-fried before being seasoned with the sauce in the wok. This cooking method is called 煎 in Chinese and means: to stir-fry and cook very quickly.
In China, sauces are traditionally prepared by mixing sugar or honey with an acidic liquid like rice vinegar or soy sauce and spices like ginger and cloves.
Sometimes a tomato-based paste is used, but this is rare and normally limited to Western cuisine.
There are many variations of the Chinese sweet and sour sauce. Some use ketchup while others use directly only rice vinegar and sugar. Soy sauce is always present.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Cooking methods: Stove, Frying
- Cuisine: Chinese
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 3/8 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice wine
- 1 ounce cornstarch
- as needed sesame oil
- as needed fresh ginger
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 scallions
- 14 ounces ground pork
- 1 egg
- 1 onion (thinly sliced)
- as needed fresh ginger (minced)
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- as needed Sichuan pepper
- 1 chili pepper (optional)
- 1 tablespoon rice wine
- as needed salt
- as needed vegetable oil (for frying)
Steps
Combine 2/3 cup of water and rice vinegar, add the sugar (120g of optional tomato), soy sauce, and rice wine.
Sauté the mixture in a wok with a dash of oil along with ginger, garlic, and scallion. Bring to a boil.
Add the cornstarch and 3 tablespoons of warm water.
Thicken.
Mix the ingredients with 3 spoons of water, form meatballs.
Deep fry the meatballs in oil.
Finish cooking in the wok with the sweet and sour sauce.
You can serve with fried scallion and rice.
