Chilli Honey Chicken

Updated: I have realised over a period of the last 15 months that some of my best recipes in this blog have been shoved away to oblivion for the pure and simple reason that they had horrible photos to accompany them. Artificial light, lack of props, ultra casual presentation and zero familiarity with picture editing tools…you name it and all of these features characterised the photographs for the first 4-5 months of Guilt Free’s journey. So one night, while chalking out my rough menu for the coming week, I decided that I’ll make it a point to cook something that is already there in the blog, revise the recipe if needed, click fresh (and hopefully much better photographs) and update my old posts. In a bid to live upto this project I have already updated My Mum’s Chicken Stew, Banoffee Pie, Herbed Sausage Prawn Rice, Hummus, Mutton Do-Pyaaza and Devil’s Food Cake, but I couldn’t resist till I redid my Chilli Honey Chicken. People call this my signature dish (*humble bow*) but it’s a pity that since the birth of my blog I’ve never really got down to making this dish barring once. High time! So when my friend from school S came down from Boston and we had a casual meet up at another friend B’s place (the larger attraction of this move was to play with B’s 10-month-old), I decided to take this over for them.

Oh, and the chopsticks that you see in the photographs have been very generously gifted to me by Didi, Antar Da and the little dimsum monster Boom from their recent trip to Japan!

Original Post: I started off with cooking Chinese way back in my school days, even before I had learnt how to cook rice or daal. Chilli Chicken, Schezuan and Manchurian Chicken were among the hottest items in those days. It was then that bored with these few limited options I tried and erred and eventually came up with this sweet and spicy dish. Chilli honey chicken hadn’t probably featured in restaurant menu cards back then, and now when I have the same dish outside it gives me immense joy to think that I came up with a similar recipe even before I had tasted anything close to it.
Even today, whenever I cook Chinese, my signature chilli honey chicken features in the menu without fail!

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

Chicken, boneless preferably, cut into small pieces: 1 kg
Button Mushrooms, sliced: 200 gm (optional, I didn’t use in this version)
Baby corn, slice longitudinally: 200 gm (optional, I didn’t use in this version)
Olive Oil: 1 tbsp + 3 tbsp for frying
Garlic, minced: 2 tsp
Honey: 5-6 tbsp
Tomato ketchup: 4-5 tbsp
White wine vinegar: 1.5 tbsp
Soy sauce: 2 tsp
Garlic chilli sauce: 2 tbsp
Dry red chillis: 2
Salt, to taste
Cornflour, for binding

For marinade:

Garlic, minced: 2 tsp
Honey: 4 tbsp
Tomato ketchup: 3 tbsp
White wine vinegar: 2 tsp
Soy sauce: 1 tsp
Garlic chilli sauce: 1 tsp
Salt
Cornflour, for binding

Method:

1. Marinade the chicken pieces with all the ingredients listed under marination and refrigerate for 3-4 hours.

2. Heat some olive oil in a non-stick pan and shallow fry the chicken in batches. In the last batch fry the mushrooms and baby corn as well. Set aside and reserve the extra marinade.

3. In the same oil (add a tbsp more if necessary), add the dry red chillis and garlic and saute for sometime.

4. Now add the chicken, mushroom and baby corn along with the marinade and cook on medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

5. Add vinegar, soy sauce, honey, ketchup, garlic chilli sauce, salt and a little cornflour mixed in water and mix well till all the chicken pieces are coated. The chicken will emanate a reddish glaze by now.

6. Cover and cook for for 5-6 minutes over medium-high heat till the gravy thickens. You can leave some gravy or completely dry it depending on whether you want to have it as a side dish or a starter.

7. Remove from heat and serve with fried/steamed rice or noodles. I also love to have it with sticky rice. China in your dining table!

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