COOKLY.RECIPES
Gulaorou, Sweet and Sour Pork
Chen Meiling
Wok chef, Nanyue Xiaochu, Guangzhou, CN
C
RISING

Gulaorou, Sweet and Sour Pork

1 h 10 min total50 min hands-onServes 3Medium

$0.99$2.99 in 28 cooks
Verified cooks
22
Nailed it
85%
Tier now
RISING
Next price
$2.99

28 more verified cooks and this recipe costs $2.99

RISING → POPULAR

Fried twice, sauced for eleven seconds, and served before the coating knows what happened.

WHAT YOU GET

  • The chef's hidden note — the technique no cookbook prints
  • Every component built from scratch, each with its own spec
  • Films on choosing and judging the produce before you buy it
  • Gross and net gram weights for every ingredient, per portion
  • Time and temperature at each stage, as run in the restaurant
  • A photo at every step that can go wrong
  • Substitutions for anything hard to find where you live
  • What usually goes wrong, and what to do about it

Yours for good once bought. Updates from the chef included.

BEFORE YOU BUY

Equipment
Wok, Deep pan for frying, Spider strainer, Probe thermometer
Allergens
Gluten, Egg, Soy
Method
20 steps · 16 photographed · 6 filmed
Components
2 made from scratch
Films
3, 16 min

2 RECIPES INSIDE THIS RECIPE

Each with its own weights, steps and timings

The sauce, the cure, the dough, the dressing — a restaurant makes these itself, and so will you. Every one below is a full sub-recipe: its own ingredient list, its own method, its own yield and shelf life. Nothing says «use shop-bought».

Starch coating

Film

Pork batons marinated, then pressed into wet potato starch that has been left to settle and drained.

Flour batter softens the moment sauce touches it. Settled potato starch fries into a shell that holds for minutes, not seconds.

  • Pork shoulder000 g
  • Potato starch000 g
Steps
6
Time
45 min
Hands-on
20 min

Makes 500 g coated pork

Marinate up to 4 hours ahead; coat at the fryer

Weights and method unlock on purchase

Sweet-sour sauce

Rice vinegar, sugar, ketchup and softened hawthorn cooked to a syrup and slackened with starch water.

Ketchup on its own is flat and sweet. Hawthorn gives the fruit sourness that Cantonese versions are built on.

  • Rice vinegar000 g
  • Caster sugar000 g
Steps
5
Time
25 min
Hands-on
15 min

Makes 300 ml · keeps 1 week refrigerated

Up to 1 week ahead

Weights and method unlock on purchase
WEIGHED

INGREDIENTS

A taste of the list · the rest locked

A few ingredients to show you what the dish is built on. Every one on the full list carries a gross and a net weight per portion, and a note on what you can swap it for where you live.

  • Pork shoulder000 g
  • Potato starch000 g
  • Egg000 g
  • Pineapple000 g
  • Green pepper000 g
The full list, weighed, unlocks on purchase

WATCH BEFORE YOU SHOP

3 films · 16 min

Most of what goes wrong is decided at the counter, before you cook anything. These are filmed by the chef: what to buy, how to tell it is good, and how to set your own kitchen up for it.

CHOOSING5:00

Which pork cut, and why loin dries out

TECHNIQUE6:00

The two fries and the rest between them

KIT5:00

Keeping oil temperature across three batches

METHOD

STEP BY STEP — 20 STEPS

16 photographed · 6 filmed

Written the way a restaurant writes a technical card: one operation per step, each with its own time and temperature. 16 of the 20 carry a photo of what it should look like at that moment, and 6 carry a short clip for the parts a still cannot show.

Hardest step: coating in sauce without softening the crust — step 12 of 20.

  1. 01

    Read the whole method before you start, then weigh everything out. Every timing below assumes the next ingredient is already within reach.

    Free preview
  2. 02
  3. 03
  4. 04
  5. 05
  6. 06
  7. + 14 more steps, timed and photographed

WHERE IT USUALLY GOES WRONG

3 things Chen Meiling watches for every service. You can read what they are right now — the answer to each one comes with the recipe.

  1. 01

    Letting the starch slurry settle and pouring off the water

    What to do about it
  2. 02

    Saucing off the heat

    What to do about it
  3. 03

    Plating within thirty seconds

    What to do about it
The chef's hidden note

The starch coating that survives sauce, and the vinegar-sugar point where it stops tasting like a takeaway.

Written by Chen Meiling. Visible only to people who bought this recipe.

Read it — $0.99

NOTES FROM THE KITCHENS

22 verified cooks · 85% said it worked

Only people who bought the recipe and showed the dish they made can leave a note. Nobody is paid for it.

PAY $0.99 ONCE

22 people cooked it, 85% got it right, and that is the entire reason it costs $0.99 rather than nothing. In 28 more cooks the price becomes $2.99. Your copy never does.

One payment · Yours for good · No subscription