Sticky Salt and Chilli Shredded Chicken

Before I start to list the ingredients and stuff, the chicken I used was precooked. The only difference this makes is that I have to fry the chicken for less time.

Ingredients:

• 200-400 G Chicken (thigh is best but not essential)

• 1 whole onion

• 2-3 cloves of garlic

• 3 chilies

• Corn Flour

• Plain Flour

• Seasoning - Salt, Pepper, Smoked Paprika, Cayenne Pepper, Dried Turmeric, Oregano and Garam Masala.

• Sauce - Light Soy Sauce, Rice Vinegar, Golden Syrup, Sesame Seeds. (As I didn’t have chilies for this recipe, I added Habañero Hot Sauce into this)

Preparation:

For uncooked chicken, divide the meat into equal sized pieces and place them in a bowl of milk/buttermilk and let sit for about 30 minutes. As my chicken was previously cooked, I had prepared the dry seasoning in a bowl and added the shredded chicken to it, making sure all the pieces were coated. All that is needed for the dry mix is that the corn flour and flour are added to a ratio of roughly 3:1 then add about a teaspoon and a little bit for luck of each seasoning and give that a mix up. Precooked chicken can be coated and left to the side, this goes for the bathed chicken as well.

Prepare the garlic, onions and chilies in the same way chopping them as rough or as fine as you like. Add these three to a hot frying pan to fry them off and make them soft. This frying pan can be put aside after the the garlic, onions and chilies are soft and cooked. Fill a wok a third the way full (my wok is a little bit smaller than medium, so you may need less of more depending).

As I don’t have a thermometer, I check the premature of the oil by placing a piece of chicken in the oil as it’s heating up. Alternate methods are to place a bit of bread in the oil or placing the end of a wooden chopstick in the oil. The oil should be at the right temperature when the oil starts to bubble around the chicken, bread or chopstick. You can then start adding the other pieces of chicken.

Do not over fill the wok, so fry the chicken in batches. Precooked chicken can be fried for about 6 minutes, uncooked chicken should be in for around 7-10 minutes. Prepare a plate with a couple layers of dry kitchen roll or a clean, dry tea towel. Once a batch of chicken is golden, scoop it out and place it on the prepared plate and fry the next batch until all the chicken is cooked.

While the chicken is cooking, get a small bowl and add half a tablespoon of each of the sauce ingredients and mix that up. When all of the chicken is cooked keep the heat on the oil and then add all of the chicken back into the oil for around 5 more minutes, this is to maintain crispy levels. After the 5 minutes, take the wok off the heat and places the previous frying pan back on and then add the chicken from the wok into the frying pan and mix this together with the garlic, onions and chilies.

Give this about 2 minutes to reheat the garlic, onions and chilies and add the sauce mix to the pan, this will bubble and steam so mind your eyes and hands. Stir all of this together and let it fry for about 3 minutes to let the golden syrup start to cling to the fried chicken.

Now you can eat your food, which can be shared if you’re having a party/quiet night in or eat it all yourself. The nice thing is that if you used a lot of chicken and can’t eat it all, you can leave it to cool, pop it in a container and leave it for the day after. To reheat this, pop it in a frying pan until it is hot all the way though. If you’re at work, give it a couple minutes in the microwave.