sweet and sour chicken

Fun fact about Me #57: I love sweet and sour chicken. I, in fact, crave it at least once a week and could probably eat it every day if it was in my budget to do so. However, sweet and sour chicken is full of things that my roommate is allergic to. Which is sad because she too loves it. So I decided to make my own version that she could eat. I made this while she was gone so that I could experiment with it a little and see if I could get it figured out so I could make it for her sometime.


An important part of sweet and sour chicken is rice. Sushi rice on to boil. Yum.


I diced up 1 chicken breast into bite sized chunks. (Okay, pet peeve, I don't understand Chinese restaurants who give you five huge chunks of chicken that could easily be three bites each.)


Then I prepared my breading. I used oat flour, water, and perhaps a little almond milk (I don't for sure remember). I think I also seasoned this with a little salt and perhaps some curry powder and ginger.


Toss the chicken pieces until they are completely coated.


Then place in hot oil and turn until golden brown and cooked through. I removed them to a plate that I covered with paper towels to drain just a bit.


While the chicken was cooking, I started on the sauce. I started with a mixture of pineapple juice and water which I heated and then added tapioca flour to to make it thicken. This was a bad idea as the flour just clumped and I had to toss it out and start over. Word of the wise: first mix the tapioca flour with some water and then pour it in.


Once it had thickened, I added some diced yellow pepper and pineapple chunks. I used yellow pepper here because I had some and my roommate doesn't like it. If I were fixing this for her, I would probably add carrots instead. Hey if you like both, throw it all in there, the more veggies, the merrier. I also added some lime juice because the sauce didn't have enough "sour" to it. Most sweet and sour recipes call for vinegar (which my roomie is allergic to), so I am a bit muddled about what to put in instead. I also added some ginger to this.


All around, this was a decent first attempt. I was pleased with the chicken, but not so much with the sauce. It wasn't sweet or sour enough. I have a few ideas in mind of what to try next time, so we shall see what attempt number two brings.