EASY SWEET AND SOUR CHICKEN
A nice Chinese dinner you can make at home
Ingredients
(Serves 2-3)
- 1 lb boneless chicken breast
- 1 tsp chopped ginger
- 1 egg white
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
(peanut oil is best, but sunflower is good too)
- 1 green pepper
(bell pepper)
- 6 carrots
- 12 oz canned pineapple chunks
(drained, but reserve
1/2 cup
of the juice.
Sauce
- 2 tsp sherry
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp salt
Procedure
-
Cut up the chicken into bite-sized chunks.
-
Combine ginger, egg white,
1/2 tsp
salt,
2 tsp
cornstarch, and
1 tsp
oil. Add the chicken chunks and stir until the chicken is well coated.
-
Wash green pepper. Discard seeds and stem. Cut into strips
1 x 1/4 inches
-
Peel carrots. If they are thick, cut in half lengthwise.
Cut diagonally into pieces about
1 inch
long. Cook the carrots in boiling water for 3-5 minutes, depending how
crunchy you like your carrots.
-
Drain pineapple chunks, saving
1/2 cup
of the juice.
-
Prepare the sweet and sour sauce by mixing sherry, soy sauce,
vinegar, sugar, reserved pineapple juice,
1 Tbsp
cornstarch, and
1 tsp
salt. Stir well and set aside.
-
Heat
3 Tbsp
of oil very hot in a wok or deep cast iron pan. Peanut oil is best since it
has a high smoking point. Stir-fry the chicken by putting a small batch
(e.g., 5 pieces) of the cubed chicken in the wok and stirring continuously
until golden brown. Remove to a dish. Repeat until all the chicken has been
cooked, adding small amounts of oil as it gets used up.
-
Heat
1 Tbsp
oil in an empty wok. Stir fry the parboiled carrots and the green pepper for
30 seconds.
-
Add the chicken and the pineapple chunks to the vegetables in the wok.
Stir 1 minute or until well mixed and reheated.
-
Add sweet and sour sauce to wok. Stir until thickened.
Notes
Serve with rice. I serve this recipe to company all the time and am amazed
at how many people don't realize that you can cook Chinese food at home. It
is always a big hit. The recipe works equally well with lean pork, tofu
cubes, or soy beans instead of the chicken.
Don't forget to start cooking the rice so it will be done at the same time
as the chicken.
Rating
Difficulty:
easy.
Time:
45 minutes.
Precison:
measure the sauce ingredients.
Contributor
Andy Tanenbaum
Dept. of Math and Computer Sci., Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, HOLLAND
ast@cs.vu.nl seismo!mcvax!cs.vu.nl!ast
Recipe last modified: 2 FEB 87
Original header
Path: decwrl!recipes
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: alt.gourmand
Subject: RECIPE: Sweet and sour chicken
Message-ID: <10818@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: 10 Jul 87 06:06:09 GMT
Sender: recipes@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Holland
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