Ham and Red Peppers

There are cook books that are passed on, there are cook books you buy, there are cook books you receive as a part of heritage, and then there some that sit their lives on bookshelves with a good collection of dust and and an occasional visit of a silverfish wanting to make way through the endless pages. I rescued this book, Chinese Cooking for All, from my husband's house. It was just there, sometimes some things are right in front of you, and you don't see it. But this time, I spotted it, like it was an instant beckon of "come and read me will you"...So doing some justice to the book, I turn to page 34..


Ingredients:
Red peppers - 3
Chicken or Pork Ham - 375gms
Cornstarch - 1tbs
Soy Sauce - 2tbs
Sherry - 2tbs
Sugar - 1tsp
Stock or water - 2tbs
Oil - 2tbs

Wash the peppers, core them and cut the flesh into 1inch pieces. Cover with boiling water for 1 minute; and drain. Cut the ham into 1inch squares. Mix the cornstarch, soy sauce, sherry, sugar water or stock together and add it to the ham. Mix well so that the ham is completely coated. Heat the oil fry the pepper pieces for 2 minutes over a fierce heat stirring all the time. Remove from the pan and add the ham with the liquid cook for a minute stirring all the time, return the pepper back together with the ham and cook for a couple more minutes.