Tag: china

Sweet & Sour Chicken (with a twist)

So, I know it’s been a few weeks since I last posted a blog. Admittedly it is a lot harder than I thought trying to keep a steady schedule. But, I’m not pressuring myself because I know that I’ll lose interest if I do.

As for my absence, a lot has happened in the last few weeks. Work has taken up a lot of it but this last week in particular (I’m writing this on the 1st of September) has been really hard. We lost our beloved pet dog Khan, we had to put him down on Tuesday. Believe me it was quite possibly one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. So, Rest in Peace big beautiful boy, you were quite simply the best dog in the world.

As you can imagine I wasn’t going to post anything this week, just to give myself a bit of time to grieve, but I don’t think Khan would have wanted that for me. So here I am struggling to come up with a recipe this week to post. So I thought it be appropriate to do a chicken recipe (his all time favourite food was… of all things… Kentucky Fried Chicken).

I’ll be brutally honest, I had intended to never post a Sweet & Sour chicken recipe. The problem I find with Sweet & Sour chicken is that it is the one dish that requires no effort on the consumers part. It is the one dish that whenever people go and visit a new Chinese restaurant, that is the dish that gets ordered (that and chicken curry but that is another rant for another day) without needing to look at the menu. I, myself will only eat two versions of it, the one my best friend (also Chinese) makes, which is her mum’s recipe and my grandparents version which is the recipe that I am doing today. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Sweet & Sour Chicken… When done right. But it does have that reputation of being a generic sauce that needs no effort (unfair observation I know), and in some restaurants it is so overloaded with food colouring that inevitably there is no taste, or there is so much sugar in the recipe that you would get toothache.

So to combat this, my grandparents came up with this recipe for it. According to my Dad this is the original Sweet & Sour recipe (something which I have found no basis of truth over but we’ll let him keep his pride, haha.) This version just uses malt vinegar. Thereby giving it a slightly more tangy flavour. It also has light soya sauce and ginger to give it another level of flavour whilst keeping it light. The Sweet & Sour sauce found in most Chinese restaurants (the red sauce) I tend to find it a bit too heavy for my palate.

So without ado here is the recipe, please note that these are merely an approximation. DISCLAIMER: I am basing this recipe on a dish that we make for the restaurant so my measurements are going to be massively skewed!

  • Chicken breast (one per person)
  • Cornflour (can use plain flour, but I find it holds the oil in a bit too much)
  • Rice flour (can get in any Chinese supermarket, but not necessary)
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Sesame Oil
  • Egg (probably about 1 for every two chicken breast, it’s just used to binding everything together.
  • Sunflower oil (to fry the chicken)

Vegetables for stir fry:

  • 1 Pepper chopped into biggish pieces (any colour)
  • 1/2 Onion chopped into same pieces as Pepper
  • Ginger finely diced (don’t need a lot…. about a couple of thin slices)
  • Spring onion finely diced (about the same as the ginger)

For the sauce you need (about enough for 2 people…ish):

  • 6 Tablespoon Malt vinager
  • 12 Tablespoon Water (offsets the vinegar but by all means start with 8 and see how it goes)
  • 1/4 Lemon (Sliced)
  • 1 Piece ginger (about the size of a teaspoon)
  • Dark Soya sauce (for colour)
  • 4 Tablespoon of Sugar (can add more if you want. It’s down to personal taste)
  • Cornflour to thicken (half a teaspoon initially mixed with water)

First off, chop the chicken into bite size pieces (try to make them uniform, just because it makes the cooking process quicker), place into a bowl and add the sesame oil, salt & pepper and mix. Once that is done, add the cornflour and rice flour (about half a cup if you’re only feeding 2 people…or just enough to cover the chicken. If using Rice flour as well use a 1/4 cup of each). Toss the chicken and cornflour until the chicken is covered. Add the raw egg and mix again until everything is coated fully. Set aside.

In a small saucepan add all the wet ingredients except the cornflour and bring to boil. Stir until the sugar is all melted and once it has reached a rolling boil turn of the heat and taste. The flavour should be there but add more of whichever you think is missing.

Back to the chicken, this is the mucky and annoying part; in a shallow sauce pan you need to add about a inch of vegetable oil (or just enough to cover the chicken pieces) put it on high heat to start. Give it a few minutes and using a bit of the flour mixture (not the chicken) put a drop in the oil, if it bounces to the top straight away then the oil is ready. Turn the heat down to medium high and (for even cooking) place the chicken pieces one by one into the oil. I would do this in batches of ten depending on how wide your pan is. It’ll will probably take about 3-5 minutes for the chicken to cook depending on how thick your pieces are. But for me, I’ve found in my experience, that normally once the chicken has got an even light brown colour all the way round, its about cooked, By all means take out a piece of chicken and cut it open to check, your looking for white all the way through but still moist, meaning when you squeeze it a bit of moisture appears.

Once all the chicken is cooked set aside on a bit of kitchen roll to get rid of whatever grease is left and in another pan you need add a dash of oil to lightly fry the onions and peppers just for a minute on high heat just until the vegetables are slightly soft but still have a bite. Add the chicken and toss to mix, then you can add the sauce that you made. The general rule of thumb is to use enough to coat and touch more to help thicken. You don’t want it to be swimming in sauce (unless that’s the way you like it), the reason being is that the chicken will become soggy and you really want to be able to bite into the chicken. Toss to mix and with a mixture of half a teaspoon of cornflour mixed with water add to the mix while stirring constantly, to thicken. If you think it’s still too runny then add a bit more, always do a half teaspoon at a time because it can thicken quite quickly. As a finishing touch add the spring onion and ginger to garnish and add a hint of extra flavour.

Then plate and serve! That’s it, I know it’s a long winded account but I wanted to get in as much details as I could. I hope you enjoy! (For the vegans and vegetarians I would substitute the chicken with Tofu, the sauce is already vegan friendly but check the label for vegetable based rennet as some malt vinegar may contain some animal product. As for the tofu you can simply fry in the same way as the chicken. By doing this it gets rid of the silky texture found on tofu (I would recommend firm tofu) and it gives it a nice bite).

I hope you enjoy! Once again if you have any questions pop it into the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer. If you like the idea of what I’m doing please follow for more recipes. I’m going to add a disclaimer here….I’ll be off to France for a week at the end of the month and this page may contain some of my Aunt (who is French) and her mum’s recipes for a few weeks. Please look forward to it!

How to cook rice

I know this seems like an odd one to start my recipes with but I’m a firm believer in starting with the basics and it can be hard to get right.

Rice is our version of bread. It goes with EVERYTHING, but I can understand why it can cause some confusion since there are so many variations. There’s American Long grain, Indian Basmati, Japanese Sushi, heck even Italian risotto is a form of rice, just to name a few. But for the sake of ease I’ll be using Long grain as my example for this recipe.

Rice is an incredibly versatile grain to cook with and once you’ve got the initial reintroduction of water down (because really that’s all your doing when your cooking rice), you can use it as a meal accompaniment, you can fry it, you can make Onigiri (Japanese rice balls, great for snacking) and even my personal favourite Korean Bimbimbap ( a rice bowl with a mix of vegetables, sauce and protein). Since it has no flavour by itself, like tofu, it goes amazing with any sauces (I personally like to add a bit of Italian Ragu and meatballs sometimes to my bowl of rice when I’m feeling lazy). Another great thing about rice is that once it has cooled down completely you can pop the rest in a Tupperware box and it will keep for a couple of days in the fridge. But do make sure it has cooled down completely, preferably overnight before putting it in a fridge.

I understand that it may sound patronising to start with telling people how to cook rice, but in my experience, unless you’ve been brought up with the grain, those who aren’t used to it tend to get it very wrong. For instance, a friend was telling me one day that her mum would just put the rice and the water into the pan and would let it boil until there was no water left. The consequence of that is, the rice then becomes very gluey and it’s like mush. Another friend admitted that he never washed his rice before cooking it and was complaining that it left a very weird feeling in his mouth. With perhaps the exception of Bas1matic rice and maybe Pilau (to some extent), rice should be soft and fluffy when cooked properly. I have been to many a restaurant where the rice is cooked “al dente” like pasta. Which is fine if that is what suits you (in which case, use less water), but if you want to eat rice like we do in the East, then soft and fluffy (like a baby rabbit) is the way to go.

So without further ado, here is my step by step guide to cooking rice:

  1. The general rule of thumb is that you use one cup of rice per person (this can be a generous portion but as I said, you can put the left overs away once it has cooled down). Place the uncooked rice into a round pan or if you have a rice cooker, into the bowl provided.
  2. Wash the rice. This is very important as it not only cleans the rice of any debris but it also gets rid of the extra starch that is in it. To wash the rice, once the water is in the pan (just enough water to cover the rice), using your hand, just swish the rice together and rub between your fingers. When the water turns white, rinse and repeat. You need to do this about 2/3 times or until the water is clear.
  3. Once water is clear, you need to put water in. While empty of water, place your index finger in the bowl until it is touching the top of the rice, then pour water in until it hits the first crease/joint of your finger. My Mum taught me this, and the rice comes out perfect every time. Score one for old wives tales!
  4. Now if you happen to have a rice cooker then all you need to do is put the rice bowl back in the machine and turn it on (it will automatically either turn itself off or turn itself to warm, I would check the instructions manual to be sure). But for those of you who don’t; place lid onto the pan and place on to the stove on high and bring to boil. As soon as it starts to boil, turn the heat down to its lowest setting, with the lid back on, and simmer (usually about 20 mins). As a rule of thumb, when you see the steam coming out, for the most part the rice is pretty much ready. If in doubt you can leave for a further minute or so.

That’s it! Turn of the heat and using a fork or spoon, loosen the rice and serve. If you have any questions just ask in the comment section and I will try to answer to the best of my abilities.