Our resident chef Mark Hix on how to celebrate the year of the rooster in style
I hadn’t realised what a big deal Chinese New Year had become in England until I tried to get a table in the Mayflower in Cheltenham last weekend. It was packed out and I had to call in a favour to get in. The weird thing was, there wasn’t a chicken in sight! Maybe nobody had realised it was the year of the rooster.
Well, I am most certainly going to celebrate: I have chicken restaurants, so a Chinese take on lacquered duck using chicken seemed like the obvious thing. That, and some sweet and sour chicken as a bar snack. There’s something deliciously naughty about well cooked sweet and sour – I often have a craving for it at 2am after the Groucho Club, preferably with some beef tendons thrown in for good measure!
Sweet and sour chicken recipe
Serves 4 as a snack
Ingredients
- About 150g boned and skinned chicken thighs, quartered
- 2 tbsp Dove farm gluten free self-raising flour
- Dry cider, to mix
- A couple of good pinches of salt
For the sauce and marinade:
- 2 tbsp chicken stock
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 2 tsp sugar
- ¼ tsp tomato paste
- Salt and freshly ground white pepper
- 1 tsp cornflour
- A small piece of red pepper, cut into very fine dice
- 1 spring onion, finely chopped
Method
- Put the pieces of chicken in the soy, rice vinegar and sugar and leave to marinade for an hour then drain, reserving the liquid and dry the chicken on some kitchen paper.
- Put the liquid in a saucepan with the chicken stock and tomato paste, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 seconds. Dilute the cornflour in a little water and stir into the sauce, season and simmer for 30 seconds until the sauce is quite thick. Add the pepper and spring onion and remove from the heat. Meanwhile preheat about 8cm of oil to 160-180C in a large thick-bottomed saucepan or electric deep fat fryer.
- Mix enough cider with the flour and the salt to form a thick-ish batter. Dip the pieces of chicken in and fry in the hot fat, turning them as they are cooking for a few minutes then drain on some kitchen paper. To serve stick a cocktail stick into the chicken then dip into the sauce and serve.