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Is fruit an ingredient for cooking (aside from sweets) in your country? I guess many counties use various kinds of fruit for cooking, but we usually don’t use them in Japan. Even pineapple on Hawaiian pizza raises a few eyebrows. The other day, one of the popular cooking shows on NHK (Japan’s national TV network) stunned some viewers with a handful of remarkable entree recipes using strawberries, a favorite fruit usually associated with fancy desserts. Those recipes are sweet sour pork with strawberries, tuna and strawberries with wasabi dressing, and chicken with strawberry sauce…w(*o*)w!

Again, we Japanese don’t often use sweet fresh fruit for cooking, so these recipes are certainly unconventional. The dark balsamic vinegar used for the sweet and sour pork gives it a very intriguing appearance.

This is it. What do you think!?

I’ll share the sweet sour pork with strawberries recipe here, so please try it if you’re interested 😉

[Sweet sour pork w/ strawberries: Ingredients for two]

Strawberries 14~15 pcs
Pork loin (block) 300g

salt  1/3 teaspoon
black pepper 1/3 teaspoon  [A]
flour (to coat pork)

Balsamic vinegar  120ml
Soy sauce 1 tablespoon 
Oil (for frying)
Black pepper (to taste)

1. Hull strawberries
2. Cut pork into 3.5cm cubes
3. Sprinkle salt and pepper[A] on pork
4. Lightly coat pork with flour and shake off
5. Fry pork in oil (160℃ – 170℃) until it gets crispy
6.  Put Balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan and thicken it until 35ml
7. Put thicken Balsamic vinegar and soy sauce into non-stick frying pan and boil up.
8. Add pork(5) and blend well with sauce
9. Add Strawberries and lightly toss it

Source: NHK ONLINE / Netlab

Author: Junko

This is JAPAN Style!