Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls
Ingredients
Chicken
- 600g chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2/3 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 teaspoon white pepper
- 1 teaspoon cornflour
- 100g plain or self-raising flour
Batter
- 250g self-raising flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 300ml cold water
Sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 6 tablespoons tomato ketchup
- 4 tablespoons white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons cornflour mixed with 2 tablespoons water
Frying
- Approximately 1 liter vegetable oil for deep frying
Preparation
Put the chicken in a mixing bowl with the salt, white pepper and cornflour, mix together and massage the seasoning into the chicken for a minute. Set aside.
Put the sauce ingredients into a saucepan and bring up to a simmer stirring regularly until it thickens up. Turn the heat down to hob mark 1 and cover to keep warm.
Mix the batter by adding the flour, baking powder and water to a mixing bowl and mixing together. Then put 100g of flour onto a plate with a pinch of salt and pepper and mix. Set up a prep station of chicken, flour, then batter on your kitchen top.
Add enough vegetable oil to a wok so it’s 2-3 inches deep, turn the heat up to high and while it’s heating up separate the chicken into two batches in its bowl, well dust the first batch of chicken on the flour plate and set them on the side of the plate ready for dipping in the batter.
Drop a little batter into the wok to check the oil is hot. When ready, drop and turn a piece of chicken in the batter to make sure it’s fully coated, then gently drop into the oil, repeat with the rest of the batch. Fry for approximately 5 minutes until golden brown, turning halfway through with a pair of tongs.
While the first batch is cooking coat the second batch in flour ready to dip in the batter and fry when the first batch is removed and rested on a rack to keep crispy.
Serve with sweet and sour sauce.
Notes
This is a slightly lighter batter version without MSG.
