Instant Pot Sweet & Sour Anything

Instant Pot Sweet & Sour Anything

Makes approximately 12 servings.
Owned by my mother and rewritten with permission.

Recipe can be make either PIP (Pot-in-pot) or directly in the liner.  It's your personal preference. 

Ingredients:

• 1 can Chicken broth + 2 table spoons chicken base (like bouillon or better than bouillon)
• 3-5 cups meat, diced
• 1 green pepper (optional)
• 1 onion, chopped (or approximately 1 tablespoon dried minced or granulated onion) 
• 1 can chunked pineapple, juice reserved to be measured out and added later
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic or 2 teaspoons dried granulated garlic
• 3/4 cup white vinegar or rice vinegar
• 3/4 cup pineapple juice (drained from can; add water to reach quantity of liquid)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 medium tomatoes, chunked, or 1 package of grape tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons corn starch + water for thickening later

Instructions:

1. Layer the ingredients, in order, except the corn starch & tomatoes.  Do not stir.
   
   (PIP it doesn't matter if you stir or not, or what order you put the food in, just make sure you have a large enough bowl to hold everything, but is still small enough to fit into your Instant Pot liner with space to allow the steam to circulate, a trivet in the bottom of the liner, and a minimum of 1 cup of water in the bottom of the liner).
2. Place lid on pot and lock into place.  Set for 10 (ten) minutes high pressure.   Allow 10 minutes natural pressure release to allow the juices to settle into the meat then do a quick pressure release.  While the chicken etc. is cooking, make your corn starch slurry for thickening.
3. After opening the pot, place the tomatoes in, place the lid on the pot, lock it & set it to "saute" for a few minutes till tomatoes have warmed.
      
4. Thicken by turning on the saute' function, get it boiling and slowly pouring in the corn starch & water while stirring. Be careful, if you get it too thick it might splatter up.  If you pour too fast it will create lumps. 
5. Once it's thickened to your liking, serve over rice & enjoy.

Optional additions:  

• 1 tablespoon ginger (I use dried, fresh will give you a much stronger hit of spices)
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce 
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce 

*  This recipe works with multiple types of meat.  Choices include:  Chicken, Pork, Meatballs, Shrimp, Beef.

**  Recipe was originally for the stovetop and was rewritten for the IP by me

*** Meat can be rolled in flour & fried on the stove prior to pressure cooking, and the drippings and crunchy bits added into the gravy mix prior to pressure cooking but be aware the breading tends to thicken the juice a bit & you have to add more liquid, so I have chosen to omit this step because I don't care for how it changes the consistency of the gravy and the extra step involved. 

****  Photo gotten from google to demonstrate what it should look like when completed.  Will ETA when I have a recent photo of my own food.