Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Sweet & Sour Chicken Brewer Style

I have been seeing a lot of recipes for Sweet & Sour Chicken floating around on Pinterest.  While alot of them are good, they just aren't what I was looking for.  I was looking for something that reminded me of chinese takeout.  I like chinese, but I don't like to pay for it for my whole family. 

So, I took a recipe that I sort of liked and made it my own!  Thus, this recipe was born, and is now a staple around our house! 

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 



To begin:  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil.

Put your cornstarch in a Ziploc bag. 
Chop your chicken into bite size pieces and toss it into the bag as well. 

Shake the chicken around in the bag until it is all coated! 
Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  
Meanwhile...
Whisk the eggs together in a shallow dish and coat your chicken pieces with egg. 
When oil is hot, place chicken pieces in a single layer in frying pan.  

Cook chicken until outside is brown, turning once.  The inside of the chicken does not have to be cooked through at this point, because you're going to bake it...and therefore it WILL be cooked through--just not yet!

Put your chicken on the cookie sheet.
Here's what your chicken should look like this far!     
Put chicken in the oven for 30 minutes. 
While the chicken is baking:
Combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan. 
At this point, you can see I had a little extra help in the kitchen...looks like someone needs to call their insurance :( he he. 


Before heating at all, your sauce will look like the picture below.  
Cloudy and weird.  It will get better! Trust me! 
Bring the sauce to a boil.  
Turn down the heat and allow the sauce to simmer until it becomes a syrup.  This might take a little while, be patient. 
Once it has simmered for a while, the sauce will be much much prettier!  

When the chicken is done, pull it out of the oven.  It should look like this: 
Drizzle with 3/4 of the sauce and lightly toss.  It will look like this:
Bake for another 20 minutes.  

When chicken is done, lightly toss again.  

Serve over rice!  We enjoy it over Our Best Bites Coconut Rice Yum Yum! 


Sweet and Sour Chicken

Chicken:
4-5 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
1 Cup cornstarch
3 Large eggs, beaten
1/4 Cup olive oil


Sauce:

1 ½ Cup sugar
½ C. Plus 2 Tbsp. Ketchup
1 Cup Apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. Soy sauce
2 tsp Garlic salt

1/3 C. Honey
½ tsp. Red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp. Corn starch


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. While the oil is heating, cut the chicken breasts into 1-inch pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Place the cornstarch in a gallon-sized ziploc bag. Put the chicken into the bag with the cornstarch and seal, tossing to coat the chicken. Whisk the eggs together in a shallow dish. Dip the cornstarch-coated chicken pieces in the egg and place them carefully in a single layer in the hot skillet. Cook for 1-2 minutes and then flip each piece over to cook on the other side until nicely golden but not all the way cooked through. Place in a single layer on a foil covered cookie sheet and repeat with the remaining chicken pieces. Bake for 30 minutes.
While chicken is in the oven, mix the sauce ingredients together in saucepan.  Bring to a low boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until sauce thickens to a syrup. After chicken has cooked for 30 minutes, remove from the oven and pour ¾ of the sauce over the chicken on the cookie sheet and toss lightly. Return pan to the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Serve over hot, steamed rice (or the coconut rice from Our Best Bites…yum!). Use extra sauce as needed/wanted on individual servings.