Lychee Pork 荔枝肉

When my daughter enjoying this dish, she keep saying this is tooooo yummy and non-stop eating..Maybe due to she likes lychee a lot ^_^. Anyway, I have to agreed with her, this dish is full of flavours, sweet, sour and savoury, something like sweet and sour pork. And love the juicy lychee hide inside the pork balls. Lychee is in season now, it is cheap and fresh, quickly to get some to try this out.
Lychee pork is a famous traditional Hokkien dish, especially Fu Zhou peoples like to cook it. A thin slice of pork to wrap with fresh lychee, to reassemble like a lychee shape ( you can use canned lychee but prefer to use fresh lychee). Sometime, people also replace lychee with pineapple or water chestnut.

 

Lets see how to cook this famous Fuzhou dish..

 

The thin slice of pork to cut like checkered pattern, so after deep fried, it look like lychee skin..

 

There is a special ingredient in this recipe which Fuzhou use a lot, red yeast paste 红酒糟 . If you couldn't find it, it should be ok to omit as I found there was no evidence of this taste (while hot I can taste it, but after cool can't detect anymore) , more to give the nice red colour to this dish and to reassemble like lychee look.

 

 

Lychee Pork 荔枝肉 

280g pork loin

10 fresh lychee or you may replace with canned lychee, halved and remove the brown part 

Marinate:

2tsp red yeast paste

1/2tsp salt

1/2tsp Chinese Shaoxing wine

½ egg yolk

1tbsp water

1tsp tapioca flour

2tsp potato starch 

 

Sweet and Sour sauce:

1tsp red yeast paste

1/2tsp dark soy sauce

1 clove garlic, chopped

½ spring onion, sliced

1tbsp sugar

1/2tsp salt

1/2tsp Chinese Shaoxing wine

1tbsp white vinegar

1/2tsp sesame oil

4tbsp tomato ketchup

1tsp tapioca flour

4tbsp water 

Method

1. Thinly slice the pork loin into 2mm-3mm slice.
2. Slice pork diagonal with a sharp knife but not all the way through, to create a checkered pattern.
3. Add marinate ingredients with pork slices, mix well and marinate for 30mins.
4. Lay a piece of pork slices (checkered pattern at the bottom), then place a piece of lychee on the pork, wrap and form into balls, look like a lychee fruit.
5. Deep fry pork balls in a wok till golden brown. Place fried pork balls on a serving plate.
6. To prepare sweet and sour sauce, mix all sauce ingredients in a bowl, then heat 1tbsp cooking oil, sauté garlic and spring onion, pour sauce into the wok and stir well.
7. Pour the sauce over the deep fried lychee pork balls and serve hot.

Inspired by a TV HHD program, Recipe by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover