SWEET AND SOUR CHICKEN
An indo Chinese dish with sweet and tangy flavour
Ingredients
- 1 kg chicken boneless thigh fillet (cut into medium pieces)
For chicken:
- Oil for deep frying
- 1 egg
- 4-5 tbsp cornflour
- Salt
- 2 tsp Chilli powder
- 2 tsp ajinomoto (flavour enhancer)
Instructions
- Heat oil in a deep frying pan (Karahi). Fry the chicken pieces one by one in batches. Start frying on high flame, after few minutes when the coating gets crispy, fry it on low medium flame so the chicken gets cooked from inside (approximately 5-6 minutes) and then again on high flame for few minutes before taking it out. This process of frying will make the chicken crispy from outside and yet juicy and tender from inside.
- For the sauce, its best to use a wok. Make a paste of the cornflour in 1/4 cup water and keep aside. In a wok, start by heating oil and splatter sesames seeds. Saute chopped garlic and the whites of the spring onion. Flame needs to be medium to high at this point because we don’t want any release of water from the onions. When they turn brown add the spices and all the sauces in this section except cornflour and spring onions.
- Quickly stir and add 1 cup water(approximately). Add the cornflour paste and quickly stir to thicken the sauce.At this point, you can adjust the quantity of water and the quantity of cornflour according to your required consistency. You can add more water if you want gravy and also cornflour paste to thicken it. Check the seasonings also and adjust. I have kept the sauce with a semi-dry consistency, just enough to wrap the chicken, as you can see in the picture below. For this consistency the measurements given should be fine.
- Add the chicken pieces and mix in the sauce. Cover and simmer for just about 4-5 minutes. This is just to blend in the sauce and chicken together. Switch off the flame and finally mix in the spring onions.
- Serve with stir fired rice.
Notes
- Make sure the chicken pieces are not too small as they become chewy after frying. If they are too big then it might not get cooked from inside properly. Its important to get the right size of chicken pieces to get the required texture of the dish.
- When doing Chinese cooking, its advisable to keep all the ingredients ready as its mostly done on high flame and requires quick cooking.
- This recipe can be varied in different ways by just adjusting the consistency of the sauce. Can be served as a snack or a starter by making the sauce without the cornflour. Make the sauce as in the recipe but without cornflour paste and toss in the fried chicken pieces. Cover with lid and leave it on medium heat for 6-8 minutes. Add in with green part of spring onions before serving.