Sweet & Sour Chicken Khairah Style

After a briani as dinner, I woke up the next morning with a craving for Chinese Food. Too lazy to go eat out, I checked ingredients I had and decided to make myself a Sweet & Sour Chicken dish with a spicy touch. So our nature, isn’t it? I never made this before because I always preferred the easiest way: Order. I googled a little bit, found Sweet&Sour Pork, Hong Kong Sweet&Sour, Sweet&Sour Dance Crew.. WTH! O.o

I decided to read all the articles, even the Dance Crew. Sexaaayyyyyyyy! ^_^ Then, I made my own Sweet & Sour Chicken with bits and pieces from everywhere.

Ingredients

500g chicken breast (boneless)
Salt and grounded pepper
Dark soy sauce
1 egg, lightly beaten
Some spoons of Cornflour or Maizena
Oil for deep frying and stir fry
1 large onion, chopped in four or six
1 medium sized red bell pepper
1 small sized green bell pepper
1 medium sized carrot, sliced

For the Sauce

¼ cup rice vinegar
1 canned pineapple with juice (440g can)
2 tsp tomato sauce (ketchup)
2 tsp tomato paste
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp soy sauce
3 tsp cornflour
½ tsp grounded cayenne pepper

Let’s Get Cooking!

• Slice the chicken breast as you wish: in cubes or in small flat fillets.
• Season the chicken pieces with 1 teaspoon of salt, a dash of pepper, ½ teaspoon of soy sauce and the beaten egg. Mix and leave to marinate for 30 minutes. I prefer to cover the bowl with cling film and put in the refrigerator to be kept cool.
• Remove the chicken pieces from marinade, dust with cornflour and deep fry until golden brown. Set aside on absorbent kitchen paper.
• Remove the seeds from the bell peppers and slice them not so finely else they will be chutneyed, lol.
• Drain the pineapple chunks from the juice and cut each chunk in three. Keep the juice!
• Blanch the veggies. See process in “How To” section below.
• Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan, drop the blanched veggies, pineapple chunks and add in ½ teaspoon of soy sauce. Stir-fry for 5 minutes, tossing and turning. I love this part, really gives you the impression of being a Chef, with the shwiiiiissshhhhhhh sound. :-p

• Prepare the sauce: In a recipient, add all the ingredients listed for the sauce and for the canned pineapple, add the juice. Bring to boil on medium fire. Simmer and stir till thickened.
• Reduce fire, add in the veggies and chicken, and heat through. Taste to check salt though, if necessary add some more.
• Serve Sweet & Sour Chicken with hot fuming white rice, bon appetit!

How to?

Blanching Process

Boil 2 litres of water and when they are bubblinggg, throw in the sliced bell peppers, cut onions and sliced carrots. In the meantime, prepare a large bowl of cold water. After one minute of boiling, drain the veggies and drown them in the cold water. This will stop the cooking process of the veggies and also give them the right degree of cooked/crunch. After 30 seconds of cooling, drain the veggies well for stir-fry.

Substitute for Rice Vinegar

No rice vinegar? No problem. Use white vinegar. As it is, rice vinegar is milder than white one, some might not like it. But it does add to the “Chinese” flavor of the dish.

Use of cayenne pepper

Okay, I have modified the recipe, as I mentioned. And I like my foods a bit spicy hence added this. You can skip it, original Sweet&Sour recipe does not have cayenne pepper in it anyway.

Substitute for canned pineapple

You can use non-processed pineapple too and for the juice, either bottled or fresh pineapple juice or simply use sugar and water. There might be other substitutes for pineapple as well, google (:

Special vegetarian

Skip the whole chicken part, lol. That’s for you, G. :)