MY SWEET AND SOUR CHICKEN
There will be a few such recipes I am to post about similar meals in the coming weeks from suggestions from my wife, sons and stepdaughters over this period…. “Can we have this, or that?”. I quite liked the idea if I am honest, gave me something to research rather than the latest Zoom quiz….and distract me from the crazy world we were in As I wanted to find what I liked and what worked for us …. I didn’t just want to go to a book and copy it – bit different from how I often cook!!
So …after lots of research, testing, trying different versions this is the one I came up with that after a few tweaks…. Has become a staple in our monthly meals – really is a good “fakeaway” style dish. Thank me later!
The key I found was, unsurprisingly the sauce, not too much to make it “over sauced” as that is not how sweet and sour should be (but by all means double it is that is your want !!) and getting that “kick” with the sweetness. Adjust to your own taste of course, but this works for us.
Don’t be put off by the ingredients list…. The sauce is a simple mix and pour, and if you haven’t got the veg I use less onion, more peppers, or substitute tomato in – whatever you want really. I also think this would be fine without the batter, just the marinaded chicken, but the sauce on the batter really does make a fantastic taste and texture to the dish.
Ingredients – serves four
250g Chicken Breast
2 x Cloves Garlic – finely chopped – much better if chopped than crushed here
1 x Pepper, seeded and cut into strips or squares – I use ½ red and ½ green normally, but 1 x Medium Onion (white) cut into segments and separated out – about 1/8th works well on
whatever takes your fancy colour wise
100g (ish) Pineapple chunks – Fresh, tinned or as I use frozen as always in hand (defrosted)
Vegetable oil – enough for deep frying
Marinade & Batter for Chicken
1 x Tbsp Shaoxing Wine – really is worth getting for Chinese dishes, stores well and lots of supermarkets now stock it
4 x Tbsp Plain Flour
4 x Tbsp Cornflour
½ x Tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt & White Pepper
120ml Cold Water
For the Sauce
3 x Tbsp Tomato Ketchup – yes that is correct !
1 x Tsp Plum Sauce
2 x Tbsp Chilli Sauce – a standard one here, not “super hot”, but adjust to your own taste
½ x Tsp Worcestershire Sauce
½ x Tsp Rice Vinegar – failing the White Wine Vinegar
½ x Tsp Oyster Sauce
1 x Tbsp Caster Sugar
¼ x Tsp White Pepper
3 x Tbsp Cold Water
To Serve
2 x spring onions – for decoration – cut thinly on the diagonal
I also generally serve this with a fried rice, but boiled is great or the northern delicacy of half rice/half chips even better!
Method
As I say, looks a lot but pretty straightforward once you have your ingredients together
Firstly, cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and place in the Shaoxing in a bowl to marinade for approx. 15 mins.
Meanwhile get your batter and sauce ready
In a separate bowl make the batter by adding the rest of the ingredients together and whisking until you have a nice consistency, thick batter. After the 15 mons of marinading add the chicken to the batter and give it a good mix to get all pieces well coated. Set aside for now.
Mix together all of the sauce ingredients in a jug or bowl until well combined… that is it for the sauce, simple.
Heat up the oil in a deep fat fryer, or as I use a wok as it becomes a one pan dish, and in batches cook the chicken by taking pieces, draining the excess batter, and slowly (and carefully) lowering into the oil. Leave to crisp and cook through for a few minutes, moving them around occasionally for even cooking – I always sacrifice one to piece to ensure chicken is well cooked through by checking it by cutting in half. You don’t want it raw, but just cooked through and still moist if you can – you will hopefully know your own fryer! But if not best to check. You want ideally a nice golden colour to the outside and cooked through
Once cooked place on a plate with kitchen towel to drain of any excess oil. If using immediately it will be fine on the plate, if not you could keep warm in a very low oven, but not for too long as don’t want it to dry out. When oil the chicken cooked, remove all but a couple of tablespoons of oil from the wok (or start in the wok now if using a fryer) over a high heat.
Fry the garlic in the oil until just turning brown, then add the onions and peppers and fry until only just cooked – literally a couple of mins – as you don’t want them soft.
Next add the sauce all in one go and bring it to the boil, this will be quick at high heat.
Then add the chicken and pineapple and gently stir to ensure all the chicken is coated well. Not a lot of stirring as you want the batter to remain on the chicken – so be gentle. As I said at the start this is how Sweet and Sour is supposed to be (I am told!) and not swimming in Sauce, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add more yourself if you want it that way
Serve with the spring onions scattered over
The Finished Dish
