This is the typical American-strip-mall Chinese Restaurant style dish. Lightly battered and fried chunks of chicken get a luscious reduced sauce of pineapple juice with a slight vinegar edge. My version has mandarin oranges and is loaded with ginger and spiced with some thai peppers. The juice from the oranges, and some honey give my recipe a more sweet-than sour side. I think I’ve done this recipe before, but I just recently noticed that many of my early recipes never got imported back into the archives. I’ll work on that sometime, but for now, here’s the recipe:
1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 or 2 thai peppers
2 T minced ginger
3 or 4 green onions
1 8oz. can of pineapple chunks
1 small can of mandarin oranges
2 T cornstarch
1/3 cup of honey
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 1/2 lb chicken breast and/or thigh meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
Batter:
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup water
1/4 cornstarch
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
Your favorite rice
Cooking oil for frying
The first picture is from my archives, it may have been a lost recipe, or maybe I never wrote it up. I’m not sure what i did with the rice that time, I might have made it with saffron or something to color it. I think I prefer regular jasmine rice for this dish. The second image is from tonight. I added mushrooms this time which didn’t do anything bad, but they really don’t belong here.
This recipe is a bit of a pain in the ass, but everybody loves it.
Put on the rice. I threw in some minced ginger and a green onion. This is a good time to prep your veggies.
Grab your big-ass cast-iron skillet and put about a cup of oil in it to heat. If you don’t have a cast-iron skillet, consider getting one for this sort of thing. If you have a deep fryer you can use that.
Mix up the batter in a big bowl, in the order of ingredients above, until smooth. Dump your chicken chunks into the batter and make sure they’re all coated.
Drop each chunk into the hot oil carefully, one by one allowing each piece some space. Don’t try to do them all at the same time, you will have to do three or four pans. My recipe from a Better Homes and Garden Chinese Cooking cookbook says 365 degrees F, but that sounds really hot. I’m afraid you’ll just have to learn how hot the oil needs to be. I’ve learned from experience that a little less than medium flame on my stove is perfect. The chicken chunks should take about 3 minutes a side until golden brown. Too much faster and the batter will brown before the chicken is cooked. Flip them carefully with long tongs. (with a deep fryer, you won’t have to worry about flipping). Drain the chunks and keep them warm.
While your doing this, open the canned fruit and dump all the fruit and juice except half the pineapple juice into another skillet (don’t splash into the hot oil!). Start it towards a boil, throwing in the vinegar, honey, peppers, onions and ginger. Add the cornstarch to the reserved half of the juice and mix well, then add to the boiling mix. Cook until bubbly and thickened enough to coat.
You should have perfectly timed this to be ready just as the rice is, and all the chicken chunks are fried. Dump the chicken into the sauce, and cook just until heated through. I usually add more honey at this stage, it give everything a nice sheen. Plate over rice.
I should mention, if you’re lazy, that these fried chicken chunks are delicious on their own. They’re great dipped in a mix of honey and Sriracha hot chili sauce (the stuff with the rooster on it).