Sweet and Sour Chicken

 Hello

안녕하세요 

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは 

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

In March, the UK went into lockdown and my main let down was that I stopped cooking and was mainly ordering in, we were having so many take away's that it was inevitable that I was going to put weight on, so I decided to hunt for a recipe that would mean I could have a fake away, meaning I could my usual treat without having to worry about extra weight.

Let's  get cooking

Ingredients:

1 onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 chicken breasts, diced

3 small to medium peppers, deseeded & diced - one of each colour.

8 baby corn, chopped

1 courgette, diced

1 handful sugar snap peas, cut in half

1/2 orange juice only

2 tbsp granulated sweetener

4 tbsp rice vinegar

70 g tomato puree

1 tin chopped tomatoes

400 ml chicken stock

1/4 cucumber

4 spring onions, chopped

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

1/4 tsp xanthan gum

pineapple

Low-calorie cooking spray

Spray wok with low-calorie cooking spray. then add the onion and garlic, and cook on a medium heat, until they start to soften.

Add the diced chicken breasts and cool until it starts to colour slightly.

Add the peppers (we don't really like peppers, so I only added 1 red pepper), and also add the baby corn and cook for a few minutes.

Next add the courgette and sugar snap peas and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Next pour in the orange juice, sweetener, rice vinegar, tomato puree and chopped tomatoes. Stir well then add the stock, then stir again.

Cook for about 20 minutes, until it starts to thicken slightly. Then add the cucumber, spring onions and soy sauce, then stir.

Place 200 ml of the sauce into a jug and whisk in the xanthan gum a 1/4 of a tsp at a time. You will need to whisk well, and keep whisking.

Return the thickened sauce to the pan and stir well, it will thicken the sauce.

Next pop in the pineapple, stir and remove frim the heat straight away.

Now you're ready to serve, serve with either rice or noodles and a sprinkling of freshly chopped spring onions.

I served mine with rice and both myself and Skye really enjoyed it. While we still have a take away every now and again, I still make fake aways when we fancy too many take aways which helps with both the bank balance and the waist line. The recipe was really easy and simple to follow, and I didn't feel like I was cooking for hours to finally be able to sit down and tuck in. I'll definitely be cooking this again as it smelt and tasted gorgeous.

I came across this on the Pinch of Nom website when I was hunting for a nice sweet and sour chicken recipe, while I left out some ingredients I included them in this recipe as well as in the method, but if you would like to check the original recipe yourself then you can head over to Sweet and Sour Chicken.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye