Stir fry - Sweet and Sour Chicken (Photos)

The wife was not interested in lunch today, or at least what I wanted for lunch, so I decided it would be a nice time to make sweet and sour. Usually I do pork and have posted that recipe in the past.

Actually I think I won the first Chopped event here (A few years back) with my Sweet and Sour Pork. I will resurrect that old post eventually, but today I will just share the chicken version of my sweet and sour dish.

The first thing is the sauce, which is probably the main part of the dish and the taste you want when you eat it. I love LaChoy red sauce in the bottle, but usually make the first Chinese sauce I ever made, may years back. I think this is Martin Yan's version of sweet and sour sauce and it is very good.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

To make it, you will need:

1/4 cup Pineapple juice
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Rice wine vinegar - start with a tablespoon less than this and adjust after tasting. I use the full 1/4 cup but you may want less.
1 teaspoon finely minced ginger
3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1-2 pinches red cayenne pepper to produce the level of heat you like
1 1/2 teaspoons Corn Starch



I always forget to show the cayenne. With this small amount of sauce, you can make it very hot with not very much cayenne.




All of these are mixed in a sauce pan, or in the case of today's effort, a microwave proof container.



And today microwaved for maybe two minutes. It was at a fairly strong boil when I removed it, and then thickened even more when it cooled.




I always taste my sauce and add pineapple if I want it sweeter, or rice vinegar if I want it more sour. Today, I was a little short of pineapple juice from my recipe and added a few chunks of pineapple before cooking to help my sauce out.

My dish will have pieces of green pepper, onion and carrot and pineapple bits as shown here. Thanks to the Dole Pineapple factory for those nice little cups of fruit in light juice.



I will cook my dish over medium high heat in about two teaspoons of oil. Bring the oil to a sizzle and cook the dish very quickly, not much longer then to heat the vegetables. I like some crisp in them on the plate.





In goes the oven cooked chicken tenders, cut into manageable pieces, and the pineapple bits and the sauce.



As soon as it sizzles the dish is ready. I serve it over cooked basmati rice.





We do other Chinese dishes, but this almost always satisfies my cravings for the taste of Chinese food.

All of my Stuff