Honey Chicken

This is one of the few sweet chicken dishes that I actually like. We first tried it out in Brunei last summer, experimenting different methods and materials. I think I have the (almost) perfect recipe now! ;)

What you need:
500g of chicken (I don't actually measure this out, just use what I want :P)
1/2 cup cornflour
Ginger, 1 cm slice
oil

Chicken mix:
2 teaspoons chicken stock (powder)
Pepper, to taste

Sauce:
2 teaspoons chicken stock
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon cornflour

What you do:

1. Season chicken in chicken stock powder and pepper. Set aside for at least 10 minutes.
2. Roll chicken in cornflour to coat. I usually season the cornflour some more with chicken stock powder and pepper. Heat oil and deepfry chicken until golden brown.
3. Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in wok. Fry ginger for about 1 minute. Since we are (still) out of ginger, I substituted it with ginger powder again, and just added it to the sauce ingredients, without frying it.
4. Add sauce ingredients. Cook until thickened.
5. Return chicken to pan and mix well. Serve immediately.

The secret to getting this right is the chicken coating. It MUST be crisp and flavoursome. I've tried baking this (trying to get a healthier method :P) but it didn't turn out crisp enough, though it did turn out ok. We've also tried using boneless skinless breast fillets cut into strips, but again, that wasn't too nice. It didn't turn out crispy enough, and I suppose chicken breast isn't as flavoursome as the thighs :P

What I usually use is chicken legs (drumstick + thigh) cut into about 4 smaller pieces. Unless your chicken legs are already small, like they are back in Brunei :D Spring chicken what, hahaha. Since we don't actually have enough oil to deepfry the chicken, what I did was first to shallow fry them until they were golden brown, and then pop them into the oven for further cooking. This actually drained off more oil, so it might actually be marginally healthier than just frying it :P You can also do it the other way round if you wish (bake, and then fry briefly ) So long you get the crispy outside :D

Like some of my other dishes, the crispy coating under a thick sauce does wonders. The sauce is sweet, but the chicken stock complements it perfectly (in my opinion :P) The ginger is also essential. Just a slight hint of ginger makes the flavour so much deeper. What you can also do (what I did anyway :P) is make a second batch of the sauce, and once you've mixed the chicken in the thickened first batch, just pour the second batch over the chicken, and heat for awhile to let it thicken. The chicken is practically glossy after this! And it adds more flavour, definitely. :D *sticky fingers, licky licky*

Hadi's suggestion for this was to make it sweeter (typical...) as well as add some veggies like onions or carrots. I'm not sure exactly how that would work, perhaps fry the onion with the ginger initially? So long as you can figure out a way, feel free to add anything you want :D This dish is definitely a stay-er in our house ;)