Sweet and Sour sauce recipe

SCMRubix

SCMRubix

SCMRubix

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Joined
26 Apr 2011
Posts
364
Location
Scotland / Australia
I absolutely love sweet and sour and 9/10 times I'll get it on a chinese takeaway.

I've experimented a bit with making my own, but have never managed to get a recipe for a sweet and sour sauce that imitates that of one you can get from a takeaway.
I'm talking about the small tubs you can get of it to dip spring rolls as shown in picture below

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I use white wine vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar and corn flower but I can never quite get the right taste.

Anything I'm missing from the ingredients?
 
I think I've posted this in another thread but I use

1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of white vinegar
1 cup of water
1 tblsp of cornflour
Cochineal for colour.

Bring it to the boil to dissolve the sugar and thicken it.

That's the base. If you want to you can throw in pineapple, sweet peppers, onion etc.
 
Never tried boiling it, only warming really.
No ketchup though?
I thought it would need some sort of other flavour
 
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
3 Tbsp sugar ( I use brown)
1 Tbsp Ketchup
1 tsp soy

Bring to boil, then add

2 tsp cornflour mixed well with 4 tsp water

Will thicken quickly. Ready to go.

It doesn't look the same as take away stuff, but that's probably a good thing TBH :p

It's not the greatest sauce in the world in terms of quality, but necessary sometimes I have conceded :p
 
Will give it a try tonight or tomorrow and let you know how it goes with boiling it

Thanks for the response :)
 
It looks like strawberry jelly lol.

Yeah, properly made sweet and sour looks nothing like the the radiation emitting stuff you get from takeaways. I don't know how to make it but my parents can.
 
Here is my little recipe for it.

  • 30g or 2 tablespoons of Corn flour
  • 120g/4oz light brown sugar
  • pinch salt and pepper
  • 120ml/4floz cider vinegar
  • 1 clove garlic finely chopped
  • 1 tsp of fresh ginger finely chopped
  • 6 tablespoons of tomato ketchup
  • 90ml/6 tablespoons pineapple juice
  • Cut up a couple of pineapple rings into bite sized chunks

Mix corn flour with cider vinegar and pineapple juice and stir until all corn flour mixed in. Add rest of ingredients and SLOWLY heat - DO NOT BOIL - and STIR ALL THE TIME - this will thicken quite quickly.
 
Robbie G said:
Why is that? Burning the sugar? High heat is that best way to stop the cornflour going lumpy as I understood it, so I'd be interested to hear the reason for this :).
Click to expand...

Every time I've boiled I mate it turns into a big lumpy mess. Slow and steady wins the day :)
 
Cornflour is a bitch, on one hand you really want to cook it out on the other hand you dont want to split your sweet and sour mess, I wouldn't worry too much about the cornflour going lumpy. I wouldn't worry about burning the sugar, unless you're hitting it with a lot of heat it's not going to fall apart. Cornflour and ketchup put the whole thing at risk of shear splitting, but that can be fixed by a slow simmer and gentle movement.
 
You've given me quite a few ideas to experiment with.
Think I'll give the sherry a miss, but I'll make 2 batches. One with cooking at quite a high heat and the other gently simmering for longer.

Any particular order I should be cooking the ingredients?
Should I sort of caramelise the sugar a little bit first or is it okay just to mix it all together?
 
Great tip for using corn flour. Get a small bottle with tight screw lid (baby food is perfect) add the cornflour and a some water, seal and shake.
 
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