This is one of my favourite meals in a Chinese Restaurant but you can make this at home. It might seem a rather complicated thing to make for one person, but you can make enough chicken for two, and either share it, or freeze half for those days when you can't be bothered and just want something out of the freezer.
There are three parts to this recipe, the Battered Chicken, the Spicy Sweet & Sour Sauce and the fried rice. You need cold boiled rice to fry later. This can be left-over rice from the day before. If you are making it you need to let it stand and cool for a few hours or the fried rice will be soggy. You can make it a couple of hours ahead, putting it in the fridge as soon as it is cooled, but overnight is better.
Boiled Rice
Ingredients:
125g Basmati Rice (or half and half Long-grain and Basmati)
Water to twice the volume of rice.
1/2 tsp Salt
If you don't have time to make Fried Rice you can, of course, have this boiled rice with your chicken. Just make it on the day and eat hot.
There are many ways to make boiled rice and it seems to be one thing that people say they can't get right. For this method you need a pan with a lid that fits. Measure the rice, a measuring cup is easiest, but it can be a mug, cup, glass or whatever. Put the rice in a pan, add the salt, not too much, and then put in twice the amount of water, by volume, as rice. Stir ONCE. Turn on the heat and bring to a gentle boil, then stir ONCE again and put on the lid. Turn down the heat to its lowest setting, if you are using a gas hob this will do, but if you have an electric hot plate you may need to move to another ring set on lowest setting. DO NOT Stir, do not lift the lid, do nothing, just wait 10 minutes. Peeking, prodding and stirring is where people go wrong. After 10 minutes the rice should be cooked and there should be no water left in the pan. Allow to cool and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours, or overnight. Don't leave it at room temperature for too long and don't keep cooked rice for more than 24 hours or you may get food poisoning.
Ingredients:
1 Chicken Breast
50g. Cornflour
125g Plain flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
Well chilled sparkling water (250ml bottle is more than enough)
Oil for frying (I use Rapeseed Oil)
This is a Tempura batter, you can use it for all sorts of deep frying. The baking powder bubbles up in the heat and makes it crispy. I don't know why the sparking water makes it light, but it does.
Firstly cut up the chicken breast into chunks. You can make them smaller than you think as the batter adds volume. If you are using frozen chicken that's fine, you don't even have to wait until it is completely defrosted, as long as you can cut through it. Don't be tempted to defrost it in the microwave, it will turn rubbery. Wash your hands after handling chicken.
Measure the flours into a small bowl, add the baking powder and mix together with a spoon. Then slowly stir in the sparking water, mixing gently. Don't beat or whisk it. It should have the consistency of single cream, and coat your finger. A few lumps are perfectly OK.
You need some oil for deep-frying. I like to use Rapeseed Oil, its has very little flavour of its own and is one of the healthier oils. You can use Sunflower oil or generic "Vegetable Oil". Don't use Olive Oil. Here's a tip, look at the ingredients of cheap "Vegetable Oil" in the supermarket, it is often Rapeseed Oil so why pay extra. You don't need a big electric fryer or frying pan for this, just take a small pan and put in enough oil to be about 4cm deep. Heat the oil until a drop of the batter bubbles and rises to the surface straight away. Fish this bit out so it doesn't burn while you cook the rest. You;ll need to turn the heat down while you are cooking so the oil doesn't get too hot.
Put some kitchen roll in a heatproof bowl to hold the cooked chicken. The ceramic bowl you eat cereal from will do. I use bamboo chopsticks to pick up each piece of chicken, dip it in the batter, and then lower it gently into the oil. If you can't use chopsticks use tongs or even a fork, Hold it for a few seconds until it starts to fizz in the hot oil then let go, it should float. If it sinks the oil is too cold. Add four of five pieces at a time so there is room for them to move around. Cook until golden brown. Turn over if necessary. Then fish out with a slotted spoon and put onto the kitchen roll in the bowl.
Put the pan containing the oil aside until completely cold. When you are done there will be some bits in the oil, you can use the oil again several times if you clean the oil. I filter it through a piece of kitchen roll in a funnel back into a bottle.
You can freeze this after cooking too. Put it in a foil container, allow to cool completely, label it and freeze. Reheat in the oven. I reheat in a Philips AirFryer on 160C for 5 minutes then turn up to 200C for 3 minutes.
Spicy Sweet & Sour Sauce
Ingredients:
110ml tap water
50 ml Distilled Malt Vinegar
100ml white sugar
2 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
dash of dark soy sauce (optional)
1 heaped tbsp Cornflour
1/2 level tsp Chilli Flakes (optional)
This is simplicity itself. You can easily double up the ingredients and store the rest in the fridge for dipping your chips in. Off the heat, put the water and vinegar in a pan, add the sugar, ketchup and soy sauce and stir well, then add cornflour and whisk until well mixed. Turn on the heat and bring to the boil, keep whisking all the time, as it start to bubble and the cornflour cooks it will magically and instantly turn from a thin cloudy liquid to a glossy clear sauce. Take off the heat and continue to whisk for 30 seconds. You can put this aside and heat up later if necessary. It will keep for a while in a jar in the fridge, both sugar and vinegar are natural preservatives.
Fried Rice Accompaniment
Ingredients:
The cooked cold rice you made earlier
Half an onion (or spring onions finely sliced)
1 clove fresh Garlic
1 tsp Grated Fresh Ginger
Oil for frying
This is a fairly plain Fried Rice but is the basis for a complete dish. You could add cooked chicken, prawns, ham, peas, sweetcorn etc. and make it into a meal in itself, but this plainer version is a better accompaniment for the Spicy Sweet & Sour Battered Chicken.
Chop the onion finely. Cut the ends off the garlic and peel. Crush the garlic using the side of a knife and the heel of your hand, chop it up a bit. Beat the egg in a cup. Grate about a generous teaspoon of ginger root using a fine grater. Heat up 2 tbsp oil in a wok, work fast and keep the heat on high throughout. Throw the onion and garlic in the wok and stir around in the oil until the onion goes clear, then throw in the garlic and heat for 20 seconds so as not to burn the garlic. Add all the cold rice and stir around, break up any lumps. Keep stirring and tossing. What you are trying to achieve here is to get the rice hot and covered in a thin film of oil. If anything starts to catch on the wok, scrape it off and stir on.
When the rice is hot, push it to the side and make a space in the centre, toss in the beaten egg and allow to scramble for a few seconds and then immediately mix in the hot rice. Keep stirring and tossing until every bit of egg is cooked, and the whole thing is hot and dry. The wok should be almost clean.
Turn out the rice, put the battered chicken on top, and spoon over the Spicy Sweet & Sour sauce. Enjoy!
