Sweet Chilli Chicken with Egg Fried Rice

I was set a challenge to cook something out of my comfort zone and this was the dish chosen for me. As nervous as I was cooking Chinese cuisine for the very first time, the competitive side in me just had to rise to the challenge and (hopefully) smash it.

I'm happy to announce that said challenge was smashed and I now have a new found confidence to try out recipes I would usually be too apprehensive to attempt.

I recommend you have everything chopped and prepped so it's ready to use as soon as you need it, as once you start cooking it's all pretty fast paced.

It may seem complicated but trust me, it's fairly straightforward and the outcome is so flavoursome and scrumptious!

I did only use 1 chilli so do use more if you like a kick. Although, I must admit, next time I will use a little more as I could have done with slightly more "oomph".

Ingredients:

For the Sweet chilli chicken:

• 2 skinless chicken breasts
• rapseed/sunflower oil
• Plain flour
• salt & pepper
• 1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 80ml water
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 2 tbsp honey
• thumb sized piece of ginger
• 4 spring onions
• 1 large red chilli (or more if you like it hot!)

For the egg fried rice:

• 3 tbsp groundnut oil
• 350g cooked jasmine rice, at fridge temperature
• 2 eegs, beaten with 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 spring onions, fine chopped

Cut the chicken breats into thin strips. Add some flour, salt & pepper to a bowl and add the chicken strips, ensuring they are coated with the flour. Set aside.

Peel and finely slice the ginger. Cut the chilli into thin strips whilst removing the seeds in the process. Set aside.

Get a wok (or large sautée pan) and heat your rapseed/sunflower oil. You'll want a good amount to deep fry the chicken. 

Meanwhile, juice the lemon into a medium sized bowl, add the chilli sauce, soy sauce, water and cornflour and stir until well combined. Set aside.

Fry the chicken in batches for a few minutes in the hot oil until golden brown, remove and drain on kitchen paper to soak up the excess oil. Repeat until all of the chicken has been cooked.

Discard all of the oil apart from 1 tbsp and gently fry the ginger and chilli for two minutes.

Add the honey to the wok and stir whilst it starts to bubble for another minute or two. Then add the lemon and chilli sauce mixture and keep stirring and bring to the boil, the sauce will start to thicken.

Add the chicken to the wok to heat through for several minutes, stirring to ensure the chicken is coated in the sauce.

Slice the spring onions and throw onto the chicken.

For the egg fried rice, heat the groundnut oil in a wok or large sautée pan on a high heat until smoking, then add the rice. Spread out the rice so it all heats through, and then toss until coated well with the oil.

Add the eggs, and stir furiously so most of the egg is absorbed into the rice, then continue to stir-fry for a couple of minutes until some of the rice has just began to caramalise and toast. 

Throw the spring onions on top of the rice and serve with the sweet chilli chicken.

Bon appetit!