Easy Peasy Sweet & Sour Chicken

Poultry & Eggs | Rice, Noodles, Pasta & Grains

Got home from uni at 1pm and was starved, so I wanted something warm, comforting and filling. Not including time taken to prepare the chicken (I am a chicken nazi – I’m terrified of the fat in the skin so will painstakingly sit and remove every piece of skin and fat from the chicken pieces, and since I was using boned chicken thighs, there was quite a bit!), it takes about 10-15 minutes to make.

Sweet and sour chicken on purple rice

Ingredients

1kg skinless, boneless chicken meat, cut into small, bite sized pieces
1/2 cup thinly sliced green capsicum (bell pepper)
1/2 cup thinly sliced red capsicum (bell pepper)
1 cup carrot strips
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup snow peas

1/4 cup soy sauce (a little less than 1/4 otherwise it could be a bit too salty)
1 small tin of diced pineapple (about 250g/8 oz)
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp corn starch

1. Sautee chicken, garlic and ginger till the chicken is browned. Make sure you do this on a high heat, a low heat will cook the chicken too early, making it lose all it’s juices and it will be dry and tough by the end of the cooking process.

2. Add capsicum, carrot and snow peas, stir fry for 1-2 minutes then remove from heat.

3. In a small bowl, combine corn starch, soy sauce, pineapple juice and pieces, vinegar and sugar. Put the chicken back onto a medium heat, pour the sauce over the top and stir through, bringing it to a full boil. Leave to boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat.

Purple rice is just a mix of regular white rice (jasmine or calrose, you choose) and black rice. We use a 5:1 ratio of calrose to black, and the colour is amazingly vibrant. The black rice is a lot chewier and helps to add more texture to the fluffiness of the calrose.

You’ll notice no red or green in my chicken – that’s because I was so taken with the colour of the yellow and orange capsicums that I decided to substitute those instead. They’re a lot milder in flavour, but I think I’ll go for red and green next time, as I think a dish as strongly flavoured as this needs a more prominant capsicum flavour. I also forgot to throw the snow peas in whist cooking, so I munched on them raw yumyum!