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Last night we had some long lost friends round for dinner and we feasted on a delicious serving of sweet and sour chicken. It was a fine meal with plenty of flavour and friendship.

So, i wanted to share the recipe to be recreated by others.

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Sweet and Sour Chicken – Serves 4-6

Meat
200ml sunflower oil
4 chicken breasts
1 tbsp dry white wine
1 tbsp soy sauce

Batter
1 tbsp cornflour / plain flour – to coat chicken first
6 tbsp plain white flour, sifted
2 medium egg, lightly beaten

Veg
1 large carrot
1 large onion
1 leek
2 red peppers, quartered and deseeded
1 small or 1/2 large pineapple

Sweet and Sour Sauce
3 tsp cornflour / plain flour
150ml water
6 tbsp soft brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
9 tbsp rice or white wine vinegar
3 tbsp tomato ketchup

Long grain white rice (to serve)

Firstly cut up all the vegetables and chicken. Peel the carrot, cut into long, ½ cm thick, horizontal pieces. Slice leek at a diagonal into 1cm pieces. Cut the onion, pepper and pineapple into 2cm pieces. Cut the chicken into 2.5cm cubes and place in a bowl with sake or wine and soy sauce; set aside.

Fill a deep pot / wok with oil and place it over low heat. To make batter for the chicken, sift plain white flour into a bowl, drop eggs into centre and beat until the mixture is smooth. Set aside.

Next prepare the sauce by placing 3 tsp flour in a small saucepan. Mix in the water, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and ketchup and set over a low heat. Simmer gently until it has thickened, stir often, this should take about 3-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove chicken from marinade. Place on a plate, coat with dusting of flour then coat in batter. Fry the batter coated chicken, a few pieces at a time on each side, until golden – for about 5 minutes. Cut one piece open to check that it’s cooked through.  Once cooked set aside.

Heat 2 tbsp sunflower oil in a nonstick frying pan or a wok for the veg. Once sizzling hot, add onion and carrot, stir fry briskly for a few minutes, then add pineapple, leek and red peppers for a further 5 minutes. Add the chicken and stir gently so as not to remove the batter coating. Next pour over the sauce and bring to a boil. As soon as it’s heated through and coated in the sauce, serve with rice.