Cheat's Sweet and Sour Chicken

I'm sure most everyone knows of sweet and sour sauce. :D Its a type of Chinese cooking, but has managed to be quite popular with Malay eaters. I'm not exactly certain on how you would make the sauce from scratch, but in this version, Hadi took a jar of pre-made sweet and sour sauce and poured it over the chicken. That is (almost) the whole recipe, if you can even call it a recipe! So, here we go!

What you need:
3 pieces boneless chicken
Cornflour, for coating
1/2 tablespoon oil
1 onion, sliced
1 jar of sweet and sour sauce (we used Yeo's)

What you do:

1. Coat the chicken pieces with the cornflour. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large frying pan.
2. Fry the chicken pieces until cooked and golden-brown all over. Set aside.
3. Add the sliced onion into the pan. Fry until softened and slightly translucent, then add the jar of sweet and sour sauce. Simmer until thickened.
4. Add the chicken pieces, and serve immediately.

Hadi actually bought this sauce because it was on offer, and of course, because he likes SWEET and sour dishes. We were a bit skeptical (from our limited experience, canned sauces are usually not all that good) but that was unfounded in this case. The chicken was really crisp and tender under the sauce, which tasted really good as well! In this recipe, Hadi used large pieces of boneless thighs, but another variation would be slices of boneless chicken, fried in the same way. The frying really helped the texture of the dish, I would fully recommend you do it. :D

I actually haven't had sweet and sour dishes all that much, but Justin and Hadi assured me that this particular sauce was delicious. The only thing missing, they said, was pineapple. I was skeptical on how we could make a pineapple (which would probably cost, what, 10 pounds?) fit into our budgets, but apparently, canned pineapples would do. Now, I am not a big fan of pineapples, but Hadi said that he would be doing a v2 of this dish with pineapples soon, so I suppose I'll have to it eat (and maybe like it!) anyway. :P We could probably try and make sweet and sour sauce from scratch as well. Wonder if that's hard... I'm sure someone out there could tell me. ;)

One of the best (and few) sweet and sour dish I've had was the sweet and sour fish from Rasa Ceria Cafe (RCC) catering. The fish was crisp and tender, and the sauce really nice. When I first ate it, I actually thought it was chicken! The fish didn't look or taste like fish at all! That was a good one, hehe.

Quote of the day: Sour, sweet, bitter, pungent; all must be tasted.