A More Local Sweet and Sour Sauce

I love making sauces.  This has, I am sure, come up before.  They are almost always easy to make and they are so flexible.  It can be a marinade for kebabs or tofu or a sauce for tossing with stir-fry or roast vegetables.

So, one day I was feeling like stir-fry.  I was also feeling like making something new.  I started flipping though the cookbooks and came across a recipe for sweet and sour sauce.  This is something I've never made before.  I was intrigued, but it called for pineapple and pineapple juice.  We don't ever have pineapple juice around the house.  We rarely even get whole pineapples.  But, then I noticed it said "or juice of your choice" in parenthesis after the listing for pineapple juice.  Aha, I thought, that's the ticket.  I've got loads of super, sweet apple juice in storage.  It seemed like it would make a keen substitution.   So with that recipe in mind I made a more local sweet and sour stir-fry for dinner.

And it was, indeed, a fine substitution.  The sauce was tangy and sweet and quite, quite tasty.  It was also tremendously fast and easy to make.

It wasn't the bright orange color I remember from the sweet and sour sauce at the Hunan restaurant where we ate in my youth, nor quite as thick, but it tasted great none the less.  Matt said he wasn't sure he'd ever eaten sweet and sour much before so he didn't have anything to compare it to.  He didn't really launch into the world of Asian-themed cuisine until he met me.

Apple Sweet and Sour Sauce
1/3 C apple juice
3 T apple cider vinegar
2-3 T sugar
1 T tamari (or soy sauce)
1 T cornstarch

Whisk together all ingredients.