Friday, December 11, 2015

Baked Sweet & Sour Chicken
















Ingredients
1 lb of chicken breast, cut bite sized (I had 1 lb+ breasts from Karns, so I used just one)
1/2 t ground pepper
1/4 t salt
1½ cup cornstarch
3 eggs, beaten

Canola or other high smoke point oil for frying chicken pieces

Sauce Ingredients
3-4T ketchup
1/2 c cider or wine vinegar
1 c white sugar (you could use brown)
1-2 T soy sauce (to taste)
1-2 t garlic powder (don't use garlic salt - you don't need extra salt in this)
1 1/2 T cornstarch

Veggies
1 can pineapple, drained (I used an entire fresh pineapple here - yummy)
2 large sweet peppers (colors make it look nice)
1 large onion
sliced button mushrooms (optional)

Instructions
coat a 9x13 pan with oil. preheat oven to 325 F

Put cornstarch and salt & pepper in a quart (or larger) sized plastic container with tight fitting lid.
Separate cut up chicken chunks and drop into container. Once all pieces are in, cover with lid and shake to completely coat with starch/salt/pepper mixture. 

Heat a large skillet on medium-high heat and add oil to coat the bottom. When the oil shimmers, it is ready to cook. Remove pieces of chicken from starch mixture a few at a time and dip to coat in beaten eggs then straight into the skillet. The chicken should only be in a single layer, so work in batches. Brown on all sides and remove placing in a layer in the bottom of the 9x13 pan. When all chicken is cooked, allow to cool while making the sauce.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together Sauce ingredients making sure sugar is dissolved.

Add Veggies to the top of the chicken in the 9x13 pan, then pour sauce mixture over all, spreading to cover as much as possible.

Bake on a middle rack. Remove to stir and coat all Veggie and Chicken pieces evenly every 15 minutes or so. Total bake time is about 60 minutes.

Remove and serve over rice.