Quick sweet and sour chicken – recipe from Gernekochen.de

Who hasn’t experienced this? After a hard day at work, you want to eat something tasty quickly that tastes good and doesn’t take you ages to make in the kitchen. This is where our recipe for “Quick Sweet and Sour Chicken” comes into play. We can easily recreate this classic Asian restaurant dish at home, especially with ingredients that you usually have at home anyway. What’s particularly practical is that this recipe can be prepared not only in a wok, but also in a pan – depending on what you have on hand. This recipe is therefore perfect for anyone who wants to quickly whip up something tasty after a stressful day.

For a successful “sweet and sour chicken” there are a few ingredients that are essential to give this dish its characteristic taste. Here are the five most important:

Chicken fillet:
Without chicken, there is no sweet and sour chicken. We use chicken breast fillet. It is cut into cubes, you can also buy already chopped chicken fillet, and then marinated with soy sauce and cornstarch. This not only adds flavor, but also ensures a great consistency afterwards.

Soy sauce:
Soy sauce is an essential part of the marinade and the sauce. It brings the necessary salty component into play and enhances the umami taste. It is worth using a high-quality soy sauce as it has a significant influence on the taste of the entire dish. Light soy sauce is particularly suitable for this recipe as it does not mask the other flavors.

Paprika:
The red pepper provides a fruity sweetness and at the same time brings a beautiful color to the dish. It should be crisp and fresh, as it is only fried briefly in the pan and should retain its bite. You can choose the classic shape of pepper or use a pointed pepper. A yellow or orange pepper can also be used in the sweet and sour chicken.

Ginger:
Fresh ginger gives the dish its typical Asian flavor and provides a slight spiciness. When buying ginger, it should be firm and not shriveled. The ginger should be peeled; you can do this with a teaspoon (yes, it works) or a classic knife or vegetable peeler. The ginger flavor goes perfectly with the ketchup and the sambal oelek.

Sambal Oelek:
This spicy chili seasoning brings a pleasant spiciness into play that harmonizes perfectly with the sweetness of the ketchup. Sambal Oelek is actually available in all supermarkets and should be used sparingly to control the spiciness according to your own taste. The spiciness of the sambal brings a pleasant kick to the sauce.

This recipe can be prepared in either a pan or a wok. The wok brings you even closer to authentic Asian cuisine, as it heats the ingredients evenly and gives them the typical wok flavor. If you don’t have a wok to hand, the pan is just as good. It is important to heat the oil properly before frying the chicken – this way it stays juicy and gets a light crust. To know whether the fat is at the right temperature, you can hold a wooden spoon/toothpick in it. If small bubbles form on the wood, the temperature has been reached and you can begin.

A small but nice tip: Roasted cashew nuts go perfectly with this dish. They add an additional nutty note and a crunchy bite. You can either roast the cashew nuts in a pan without fat or buy them already roasted and sprinkle them sweet and sour over the chicken just before serving. Did you know that the term “nut” for cashews is actually wrong? The correct term would be “cashew fruit” because they are stone fruit. Crazy, right?