Sweet & Sour Chicken

Lately I've found myself craving the "comfort foods" of my youth and thanks to the reminder by an old roommate, I cooked up one of my favorites - Sweet & Sour Chicken from the "Cooking For Two" cookbook that my mom gave me in college.  It's been awhile since I made it but, after I did, I remembered why I love it so much.  I cooked this a lot with my roommate in college, as you can see from the stained page and pencil notations to the recipe:

Needless to say, it was in regular rotation during my college days.  It was kind of fun cooking it now, many years after I started my cooking journey, to see how I made slight changes to the way I cooked it based on things I've picked up.  For one, I've learned that when you have something that mixes wet ingredients with dry ingredients, you should mix all the wet together and all the dry together before mixing the two.  It makes for less lumps, which was always an issue with this sauce before.  Here's the wet and dry ingredients ready to be mixed:

And then the final product:

I also prepped all the vegetables (I didn't have tomato or pineapple on hand, so I skipped those steps):

The picture above also shows off my super cool (and super sharp) Japanese knife that I got as a gift.  The knives are hand-forged steel with wooden handles and each has the Japanese congi of the person who made it.  It's a great knife, even if I've almost cut off two of my fingers using it...

Then I got the chicken dipped in egg and cornstarch cooking:

The next step is to stir fry the veggies until tender, then add the sauce and bring it to a boil so that the sauce thickens:

The final step is to add the chicken back in and let it simmer for a few minutes, to absorb all the flavors and thicken the sauce a little more.  Here's the final product, which I serve over white rice:

Making this dish brought back so many great memories, I plan to put this back in regular rotation in my cooking schedule.  In case you want to make the dish yourself, I've listed the recipe below.  I usually double the sauce recipe - it's the best part of the dish so the more there is, the better the dish is!

Sweet & Sour Chicken - Cooking for Two
3/4 pound lean pork or chicken
1 egg, beaten
About 1/4 cup cornstarch
About 2 1/2 T oil
1 small onion, cut into 1 inch squares
1 medium-sized carrot, sliced diagonally 1/4 inch thick
1 small clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 small green pepper, cut into 1 inch squares
1 can (8 oz) slice pineapple, drained
1 medium-sized tomato, cut into 1 inch cubes

Sweet & Sour sauce
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
2 1/2 T packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp fresh ginger OR 1/8 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp dry sherry
2 T wine vinegar
2 T water

Dip the chicken pieces in egg, drain briefly, and roll in cornstarch until lightly coated (shake off the excess).  Heat 1 1/2 T of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add chicken and cook, turning constantly until browned.  Lift chicken from pan and set aside, scrape free and discard any brown bits, leaving oil in pan.

Add enough oil to pan to make about 1 T and place over high heat.  Add onion, carrot and garlic, stirring for about 3 minutes, or until veggies are tender-crisp.  Add green pepper, pineapple, tomato and sweet and sour sauce.  Cook, stirring, over high heat until mixture boils.  Add chicken, stirring for 1 min longer, to heat through and coat chicken with sauce.