Sweet and sour chicken in batter
Commonly known as sweet and sour chicken ball, this popular take away dish are seldom fried in a round ball shape. In all the shop I’ve seen and been to; the chicken breast are cut into thumb size strips and fried in wet batter. I cook my sweet and sour chicken in this style also. Therefore on my menu I titled this dish “sweet and sour chicken in better”, without the word “ball”.
Sweet and sour chicken is made with strips of chicken breast cut into thumb size strips and deep fried in batter made up of self raising flour and water. Below is my recipe for popular Chinese take away dish.
Ingredients:
1 chicken breast cut into thumb size strips
Pinch of salt
Pinch of MSG
Dash of white pepper powder
Dash of sesame oil
Dash of cooking wine (Shao xing)
Half teaspoon potato starch
Batter
100g self saising flour
120g water (guide only)
Pinch salt
Pinch white pepper powder
One medium size chicken breast makes about 10 strips which the number of chicken batter in a portion. I recommend marinate the chicken for about 30 minutes for the flavour to seep in. Make the batter first and leave it to stand for 10-15 minutes before deep frying. Use suitable vegetable oil for deep frying; such as sunflower or rapeseed oil. For safety do nor fill you wok or pot over the ¾ mark as the oil could spill over when deep frying and that can cause a mess and a hazard. The oil temperature should be around 170-180 C as a guide. In practice use your judgement. When you place the chicken batter in the wok, it should have a steady stream of bubble coming up (see video above). The chicken should rise slowly in 5-10 seconds. If it stay down the bottom of the wok; it means the oil temperature is not hot enough. If the pops up instantly with quick bubble stream, it means your oil temperature is too high. In these instance you will find the chicken batter will turn dark colour (burnt!”) before it is cooked! In these situation remove the chicken in batter with a metal strainer and wait for the oil to cool down. You can bring the oil temperature down quicker by adding cold oil to the wok (see video). To do that MAKE SURE you cold oil is clean (unused) and the ladle you use is dry. Any water residue in hot wok is dangerous.
I have seen people placing the chicken in batter in the wok with their fingers. I prefer to use a pin to transfer my chicken to the wok. This way you do not leave a mark on the batter and is less messy on the fingers. Because you are frying one at a time, to do it all in one go will mean the first chicken that goes into the wok will be cooked by the time you out the last one in. To make sure all the chicken balls are cooked at the same time, deep fry them for 1 minute until the batter sets and remove them aside while putting the rest of the chicken in. Once you have enough to fill the wok, add them all back in and turn heat to medium/high and stir constantly; deep fry them until golden colour. Maybe 5 or 6 minutes depending on you burner. Before you remove the chicken balls from the wok, turn heat up to maximum to force the oil from the batter. This way you chicken ball will be a little less oily.
Enjoy with sweet and sour sauce, a recipe also on my channel be link below.
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Sweet and sour sauce recipe on my channel • how to make REAL TAKE ...
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9 янв 2023
