Sweet & Sour

In my ongoing efforts to totally and completely confuse you with the content of this blog, I bring to you tonight's mouth watering post. I was trying to figure out something for dinner, had chicken in my fridge, was craving Chinese and had no $ to order out. Attempting to be ambitious I started looking for chinese chicken recipes. I then remembered that my mom had donated a little Fry Daddy to our household this past fall and I hadn't had an excuse to use it yet.

Then came the "aha!" moment. I came across this recipe that got gobbled up so fast I barely had time to take pictures. I also didn't think to take pictures of the process, so hopefully you can follow along without. (Hey, I had to! You can too!)

*****(This was enough for our family of two, adjust this up and down to fit your family size and appetite. Also, I had more than half the sauce left over even after generously using it on rice and veggies. Next time I make this I'll cut the sauce in half. But again, if you're a "Sauce lovin" kinda family, this amount might work for you. Adjust as you need to make it work. )******

Sweet & Sour Chicken 

Chicken Ingredients:

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 cup flour
• onion and garlic powder (to taste)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• salt (I used seasoned salt, this is to your taste)
• 1 tsp oil

Sauce:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 3 tbsp soy sauce (I used the low sodium kind)
• 2/3 cup water
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tbsp cornstarch (mixed into 1/3 cup COLD water to dissolve)
• 1/2 tbsp oil

Directions for Chicken:

• Wash your chicken breasts and cut into a little bigger than bite size pieces. (I sprinkled them with some salt at this point, but use your own judgement and tastes)
• Combine the egg, flour, spices, water and baking powder, and cornstarch in a bowl with the oil and mix until a batter forms. (It will kind of be the consistency of a cake batter.)
• Pour about three inches of oil into the bottom of your deep fryer (or top of the stove pan) and let it warm up.
• Dip your chicken pieces in the cake batter and coat them pretty well. (You WILL get messy here...there's no way around it!)
• Drop slowly and carefully into the hot oil and allow to cook for about five minutes, or until the outsides are golden brown, turning only once in the oil.
• Remove from oil with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Directions for Sauce:

• While your chicken is cooking combine all ingredients for sauce in pan except the cornstarch in water and bring to a boil.
• Add the cornstarch mix carefully and whisk into the sauce slowly.
• Bring back to a boil and let it cook about five minutes until it thickens.
• Reduce heat to a simmer, keep warm.

We served this with white rice and broccoli. It was delicious! A little time consuming but not too bad, and something that was really really good!

So if you try this out let me know. I think this one is going on my family's regular meal rotation...is that bad? And I may or may not have eaten all the chicken pictured here and left a few bites of broccoli orphaned....*shrug*