Today I made sweet and sour chicken. You can find this meal at Chinese restaurants in Korea. Since I used chicken instead of pork, the Korean name should be Tangsugi instead of Tangsuyuk. Because “yuk” means pork and “gi” means bird, chicken or something that flies in Chinese character.

By the way, guess how long it took me to cook. Oh my goodness, I think it took me about 1 hour and half. I haven’t cooked one meal for this long for ages. However if I had a bigger kitchen and some bigger pots, it would have helped a lot.

Anyhow, as a second try, it turned out really well. (Much better than the first time, which was about 1 year ago.) I decided not to cook again at that time, but I gave it a try today.

Ingredients for 2 people

-For marinating chicken

• Chicken breast – 4 pieces (about 500g)

-Marinade sauce (mix the following together or add them onto the chicken straight away)

• Ginger powder -2 tsp
• Refined rice wine (or any cooking wine) – 1 tbsp
• Soy sauce – 2 tsp
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Pepper 2 sprinkles
• Parsley powder 2 sprinkles

-Coating batter (mix all batter ingredients in a big bowl.)

• Starch powder 165 ml (Sorry I don’t have a scale.)
• Water 150 ml
• 2 Egg white
• Olive oil – 2 tbsp

-Fruit and Vegetables

• 1 Yellow capsicum
• 1 Red capsicum
• 1/2 a cucumber
• 1 onion
• 1/2 a carrot
• 5 pieces of canned pineapple

-Sweet and Sour sauce (mix all sweet and sour sauce ingredients in a bowl except the mix of the starch water.)

• Water 200 ml
• 200 ml pineapple juice from the can
• Sugar 4 tbsp
• Soy sauce 3 tbsp
• Vinegar 2 tbsp
• Mix of starch 1.5 tsp + water 3 tsp

Preparation

-For Chicken

1. Wash the chicken in cold water.
2. Thin slice it.
3. Put it into a bowl.
4. Add marinating sauce. Marinate it for about 15 minutes.

-For fruit and vegetables

1. Wash all the vegetables.
2. Thin slice the carrot.
3. Cut the other vegetables into pieces.
4. Cut the pineapple rings into pieces.

Cooking

1. Pour the chicken out into the batter bowl.

2. Pre heat the wok for about 20 seconds.

3. Pour some oil into the wok. (a lot – It is deep frying)

4. When the oil starts to boil, put one battered chicken piece in it.

5. If it starts to fry, add more of the chicken.

6. When you finish frying the chicken, put them onto a plate. (On kitchen paper to soak some oil out.)

7. Pan fry the carrot and onion in a different pot (a) until 80% of them cooked.

8. Pan fry all the other vegetables and pineapple in a different pot (b) for about 3 minutes.

9. Add the 80% cooked carrot and onion into pot (b), pour the sweet and sour sauce (except the mix of the starch water) into pot (b).

10. Boil the pot for a while, and add the mix of the starch water. (But add it 1 spoon at a time. Otherwise the sauce will thicken suddenly and turn to gel.)

11. Deep fry all the chicken again. It is crispy if you do. (But if you don’t want to do it, I guess that is OK too.)

12. Serve it on the dish, with the sweet and sour sauce and veggies either over it or separately for dipping.

By the way, the sweet and sour sauce didn’t turn out as I hoped. It was a bit runny. So I think you might need to add extra starch in the sauce. I ran out of starch after making the batter.
Anyway, I will make a better (thicker) sweet and sour sauce sometime soon (probably in a couple of months since it is a frustrating job to do, because it takes a long time to cook)
So do check for the updated recipe on the blog later.

Related Post

Sweet and Sour Chicken 2 (Tangsuyuk in Korean)

Related posts:

1. Sweet and Sour Chicken 2 (Tangsuyuk in Korean)
2. Deep Fried Chicken in Garlic Sauce (Ggan Pung Gi in Korean)
3. Spicy Chicken & Vegetable Stew (Dak doritang in Korean?)
4. Marinated Chicken Stir Fry with Gochujang sauce (Dakgalbi in Korean)
5. Korean Black Bean Paste Noodles (Jajangmyun in Korean)