Chinese Sweet and Sour Chicken

Posted by liz at recipegoldmine.com May 26, 2001

Source: Posted by Cookin' Dad 03-27-2001 09:33 pm

This is an excellent recipe for sweet and sour chicken. It uses a soy sauce-based sweet and sour sauce. I have also included a red sweet and sour sauce recipe at the bottom of the recipe if you and your family prefer that type. Please let me know how things go.

2 large whole boneless chicken
    breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1/4 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water
5 teaspoons ginger (GRATED EXTRA-FINE)
1 teaspoon garlic, minced (I used garlic press)
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup green onion, sliced in approximately
    1/4-inch segments
2 tablespoons hot oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch, mixed with water for thickening sauce
Chicken nugget breading
2 cups cornstarch (approximation)
2 eggs
1 cup water (approximation)
1 tablespoon oil (approximation)

Red Chinese Sweet and Sour Sauce:
1/3 cup ketchup
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 teaspoons regular prepared mustard**
1 tablespoon ginger (minced as fine as possible)
1 teaspoon garlic (minced as fine as possible)
About 3 tablespoons green onions, green part only
About 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with little more than
    1 tablespoon water for thickening sauce
About 2 tablespoons hot oil (add to sauce after thickened)

** You can omit the mustard, but I personally prefer that subtle extra it adds. No matter what you decide, you'll like this sauce.

Several hours before cooking time, cut salt chicken (I used a little less than 1 teaspoon). After you have salted chicken, drizzle a little water on breast chunks and mix. Follow that with about 2 tablespoons cornstarch.

Mix cornstarch in, gently massaging it into meat with your hands. Set in refrigerator.

A couple of hours before cooking time mix sauce ingredients together. This includes everything EXCEPT green onion, hot oil and cornstarch. Make sure the ginger is VERY FINELY minced or you will sacrifice some of the flavor. This step may take extra time, but your effort will be rewarded - trust me, this sauce is yummy! Set sauce aside to allow flavors to marry.

Before you heat up oil (about 3 inches deep in deepest part of wok), mix eggs, water and oil together bowl. Place nuggets in mixture, then dip in pure cornstarch. Make sure you have a thin, solid coating with no bald spots. Heat oil while nuggets sit in cornstarch. Before frying, make sure oil is piping hot (important for allowing cornstarch to achieve its full functionality). Drop first batch of nuggets in hot oil (should see just a little smoke just before nuggets are placed in oil). Oil temp. for this recipe is important, because if oil is hot enough, nuggets will be slightly crispy in spite of having been fried for just 2 1/2 to 3 minutes! On the other hand,if the temp. is too low, your nuggets may have a slightly gooey exterior. If you have a thermometer, fry at 375 to 380 degrees F.

Remove first batch of nuggets which should be ready in no more than 3 minutes. Unless you are using golf ball-size nuggets (lol). Drain well. My nuggets were super tender after frying them for not quite 3 minutes Allow a minute or two for oil temp. before frying your next, and possibly final, batch. Also, for optimum results with different sized nuggets in same batch, put larger size nuggets in BEFORE smaller size ones.

After you are done frying and draining nuggets, pour oil out of wok and into safe container. Allow wok to cool for a minute or so before cleaning it and then heating sauce. When heating sauce, pour in cornstarch/water mixture within first minute or so. Stir and, when sauce starts to thicken, add hot oil and stir well before adding green onions. Lastly, dump chicken nuggets into wok and stir until all nuggets are coated with sauce.

Serve over white rice.