About a month ago, at a regular gathering with the other foreigners in this area, we went to a Chinese restaurant. We usually order sweet and sour pork as a main meal to share and individuals order small meals like fried rice or Jajangmyun. Then two of the adventurous Canadian couple suggested we have something different than sweet and sour pork, and they suggested we have deep fried chicken in garlic sauce instead. They said it was really delicious. Michael and I didn’t mind, but others were a bit iffy.

The dish was served and it looked so glorious. I hadn’t had it for a long time, so I almost forgot what it tasted like. The chicken had golden fried skin, very crispy texture, and slightly sweet – sour and spicy – garlicky taste. Everyone totally loved it, except one person.

Then a couple of days ago, I really craved that dish and I tried to make it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the right amount of starch powder, so I had to change the method a little bit. Sadly it turned out that it wasn’t as crispy as what I had at the Chinese restaurant, but it was still delicious in a sour, garlicky, morish way. I still have some ingredients left over and bought a new pack of starch powder, so I am going to make one more dish, hopefully improved, this week sometime.

Ingredients for 2 people (If you are having other small meals as well, then you can share between 3 people)

(Expected prep time – 15 minutes, Cooking time – 30 minutes ; You can reduce the time if you have a big frying machine and bigger kitchen)

Meat and extras

• Chicken breast 500 g
• 1/2 a red capsicum
• 1/2 a green capsicum
• 1/2 an onion
• 1 green chili (spicy)
• 1/2 a lemon
• Olive oil – 1 tbsp
• Some vegetable oil for deep frying

Marinade Chicken (mix these together in a bowl)

• Refined rice wine – 1 tbsp
• Soy sauce – 1 tbsp
• Pepper 3 sprinkles
• Salt 3 sprinkles

Batter

• Starch powder (I used potato starch) – 3 tbsp
• White flour (I used all purpose flour) – 3 tbsp
• Curry powder – 1 tsp
• Water – 5 tbsp
• 1 egg, beaten

Garlic sauce (mix these together in a bowl)

• Vinegar (I used apple vinegar) – 2 tbsp
• Soy sauce – 2 tbsp
• Oyster sauce – 2 tbsp
• Honey – 2 tbsp
• Refined rice wine – 2 tbsp
• Minced garlic – 1 tbsp
• Ginger powder – 1 tsp
• Sesame oil – 1 tbsp
• Lemon liquid – 1 tsp

Prep

1. Rinse the chicken in cold water.
2. Cut the chicken into bit size pieces, add the marinade sauce then soak it for 15 minutes.
3. Cut the capsicum and onion into small cubes.
4. Take the seeds out from the chili and thin slice it diagonally.
5. Thin slice the lemon.
6. Make the batter. (Sieve the powders and flour first, then add the water and egg, and mix them well in a big bowl)
7. Put the chicken into the batter bowl, mix it well.

Cooking (you will need two woks)

1. Pre heat the wok (a) for 20 seconds.
2. Put the vegetable oil into the wok and when it starts to boil, add one battered chicken piece.
3. When it floats, add more chicken and fry all the chicken.
4. Put the fried chicken onto some kitchen paper to soak some oil off.
5. Put the olive oil into the wok (b), add the chili, stir fry it briefly, then take out the chili. (It was for flavour. so you can throw it away.)
6. Add the capsicum and onion, stir fry it.
7. Add the garlic sauce and stir it well. (making the garlic sauce is done here)
8. Deep fry all the chicken once more (in wok (a) ), for a crispy texture.
9. Soak some oil off with kitchen paper then serve the chicken on the plate.
10. Add the garlic sauce onto the chicken and add the lemon for topping.

I hope you like it, we certainly did!

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Sweet and Sour Chicken (Tangsuyuk in Korean)

Korean Black Bean Paste Noodles (Jajangmyun in Korean)