THS CWT SWEETSOURCHICKEN 2017 12 28

Hey everybody, Chef Trevor here, Chef de Partie of Benchmark Restaurant, and I'm here today

at Wine Keller Restaurant in Niagara Falls. Today we're going to be making sweet and sour chicken

We're going to use a few simple organic ingredients and a little bit of love and time in the oven

to simulate one delicious sweet and sour chicken dish. And it all starts with chicken breast

So let's get started cooking with Trevor. So the first thing you want to talk about when you're talking about chicken breast is

you want to make sure you're buying a good quality product. Whether that's from a local farmer, a local producer, or your very own grocery store

you want to make sure you're making sensible options. You really want to buy fresh, air-chilled chicken

And when you buy that, you'll notice the flesh itself is a little bit darker, it looks a

little bit plumper. And please, please, please support local farmers and buy local

Today I've got two local Niagara chicken breasts. I'm just going to put them down on my cutting board and we're going to prepare them for

our sweet and sour chicken. So the chicken breast itself is taken off the chicken and this is where the drumette

comes away from. We always want to feel around in that spot just in case the butcher missed a little bit

of cartilage or bone. This one is good. And we just want to kind of trim off and get rid of any excess fat that might be on there

You just want to take your time using a really sharp knife. And we're pretty good on both these chicken breasts here

And right underneath here on the bottom is our first step. So that right there is the chicken tenderloin

You just want to peel that right off to create a more even chicken breast

And we're going to do that on both. That's where your chicken fingers come from

Anytime you have a delicious chicken finger in a restaurant, it's usually made from the chicken tender

Then what we want to do is take our chicken and just make nice even chunks with it

And remember, like I always say, if you're going to cut it into chunks, make sure they're

all even so that they cook evenly

And if you want in this dish, you could always substitute in pork instead of chicken

You could do turkey instead of chicken. You could do strips of beef

You could change it up to whatever protein you want to work with. You could even use firm tofu for the same application if you're trying to eat vegetarian

What's going to happen is we're going to fry this quickly to give it a nice crust

And then we're going to let it bake in the oven so that that nice crust can soak up all

of that sweet and sour sauce. Very important step. Once we are done with our chicken breast and we're done with our knife and cutting board

very important that we take it to the sink right away and wash it and sanitize it

We do not want to make anyone sick or cross-contaminate this cutting board in any way once we've got

our chicken in the oven. Always important when you're working with chicken or any kind of protein that you sanitize

your workstation as you go because you never want to make anybody sick

I have our chicken in our bowl and I have a few secret ingredients that are going to

go in. First one, salt. If you like lots of salt, you're going to put lots of salt on here

If you like a little bit, you're going to just put a little bit. The idea is we're creating that first layer of flavor and seasoning that meat

To add to this, I'm just going to add one teaspoon of garlic powder and I'm going to

mix all of that around. I just want to massage that in, making sure every piece of chicken gets coated nicely

Once all the meat is seasoned perfectly, we're going to take three quarters of a cup of corn

starch and we're just going to drip that over the chicken. Then we're just going to toss and make sure each piece of chicken is evenly coated

What this is going to do is once we dip this in egg, the corn starch and the egg are going

to create almost like a film on the outside of the chicken

That's what will actually fry and simulate our crispy crust that we would normally get

using panko breadcrumbs or any kind of flour breading. We want to keep this gluten free today, so we're going to use corn starch and egg to

simulate that crispy crust. When you're done, you can wash your hands and get yourself a plate because we're going

to fry this chicken in batches. What you want is a nice hot pan with about a quarter of a cup of coconut oil in there

getting nice and hot. What we want to do is fry the outside of that chicken really quickly, create a golden brown

crust so that when we mix it with our sauce and put it in the oven, it's going to start

to absorb and suck in all of the flavor from that sauce and maintain its crispy texture

on the outside. All we need to do is with our chicken and our nice warm oil, we want to start using

our egg. In this bowl, I have two eggs just beaten to crap

Beat them as much as you can. Make sure there's no little flecks of white left

You should have two very runny eggs in the bottom of here. We're just going to take our pieces of chicken and working quickly here, we're just going

to dip them in the egg and toss them in the oil

And you want to do this in stages so you don't overcrowd the pan. So if you start overcrowding the pan, then you're going to cool the oil down and you're

going to end up with really greasy, not really appealing to the mouth chicken

You want to work in batches. So once you've got about seven or eight pieces in the pan, that's about time for you to take

your cue and we just want to flip it as it starts to get a nice golden brown color

And you'll see that that cornstarch and egg mixture has almost created a little bit of

a crispy, almost protection for that chicken as it cooks in the oven

So at this point, you don't need to cook the chicken all the way through because we are going to put it in the oven for about 55 minutes once we've got it all nicely browned

So you just want to make sure you're getting a good crispy crust on the outside of each

piece of chicken. And always remember folks, when you're frying with oil, always use a pan at least four times

bigger than the amount of oil you're going to put in. The last thing you want is to have hot oil splatter all over you

Believe me, it does not look appealing and it hurts really, really, really bad

So you're just going to take your plate once nice golden color starts happening on both

sides and you're just going to take your chicken and set it on the plate

So just working in stages, you're going to repeat that process until all the chicken

is gone

And that was the hardest part of this dish. The next steps are really easy and in 55 minutes, you will be eating delicious sweet

and sour chicken fresh from your oven. So we've got our chicken here. It's all fried

It's golden brown. It's crispy. We've got a few things we want to do to get this dish ready for the oven

So the first thing is we want to take a 9 by 13 baking dish

You can use glass. You can use ceramic. You can use metal. Just remember that if you use metal, it's going to cook hotter on the outsides than

it is in the middle. You just want to get that coated with a little bit of coconut oil or olive oil just so that

the chicken and the sauce as it bakes doesn't stick and ruin your pan. And we're just going to let that set aside while we prepare all the ingredients for the oven

So the first thing I want to do is get some red pepper in there. I'm just going to take the top and bottom off

Because I don't like wasting pepper, I just kind of peel that little green bit away and discard

Then once that's out of the way, I make one slice and I go inside and I just cut out the ribs

Bada bing, bada boom. The only part of that pepper that I lose is the seed pod that I can't eat anyway

Because we don't want these peppers to kind of mush and get soggy, we want really big cuts

And don't worry. It can be rustic. Who cares? It's just you having a delicious quick meal

Just remember though, they should all stay a nice even size

Next I got two ribs of celery. I'm using celery and red pepper today

It does not matter whatever vegetable you want to use. Use it

If you want pineapple in there, use some pineapple. If you want broccoli even, use broccoli or bok choy

Any vegetable will do here. I'm just trying to make this a full meal

So I'm going to make some nice thick cuts on the celery and in that goes

And then I'm going to reserve one green onion for garnish. And then I'm going to take these ones and I'm just going to cut them into nice big strips

And then we're going to add our chicken. So to make this sweet and sour sauce, we literally need four basic ingredients

The first one is organic unpasteurized honey. So I've got three quarters of a cup of honey

I've got half a cup of apple cider vinegar. That's going to be the sweet and the sour to our sauce

And to just round out the flavors and give it a little bit of sweetness and a little

bit of saltiness, we're going to add one tablespoon of tamari soy sauce and we're going

to add three tablespoons of organic ketchup. And organic ketchup won't use any of the fillers or any of the processing materials that are

normally used in any kind of regular ketchup. So all we're going to do is mix all those ingredients together in a bowl

So in goes our apple cider vinegar. In goes our soy sauce

In goes our ketchup. And in goes our honey. Now a quick little trick that you can do when you're measuring out honey is there's always

going to be that little bit stuck in the bowl that you can't just ever seem to get out. You can just always add a little bit extra when you're weighing it out and that way you

account for the little bit that's stuck in the bowl. And I'm just going to whisk that around until all of the ingredients come together and are

incorporated nicely. What we're really looking for here is the honey to dissolve into the vinegar

The ketchup and everything to become one really smooth characteristic orangey red sauce

So right there already you can kind of see that our original sweet and sour sauce color

is there. It's preserved. And all we're going to do is take that sauce and going around the sides of the bowl we're

just going to let all those ingredients get tossed nicely in that sauce

You could be brave and you could give it a flip and you can make sure everything is

coated nicely. Making sure to get all of that chicken, all of that wicked crust coated with this sweet

and sticky sauce. You do not want to spoon this out of the sauce and into the pan

We want to absolutely get every little bit of that sauce in there because as it cooks

it's going to get thick. It's going to get nice. We're going to go back to the oven

We're going to toss it a few times. Once we've got everything in there looking lovely does that not look like something you

would want to eat? My gosh does that ever look good. We're going to transfer this to a 325 degree oven for 55 minutes to an hour

Alright it's been about 55 minutes and our chicken is just about to come out of the oven

and you're going to be very pleased with the results. All that sauce has thickened and gotten beautiful and penetrated right inside the crust on that chicken

We now have better than Chinese food, Chinese food. And all we need to do is simply take a bowl with some plain white rice in it

Your prerogative here if you like Uncle Ben's you're going to use Uncle Ben's. You like Jasmine, Basmati, it's up to you

Whatever rice you want to use you just fill the bottom of your bowl

Then we're just going to take that beautiful chicken, trying to get some of those vegetables

and just spoon it right on top. Give our bowl a little clean up, making sure everything looks nice and then you're just

going to top that sweet and sour chicken with a little bit of toasted sesame seeds and some

chopped green onion that we reserved from earlier. And there you have it

Better than Chinese takeout sweet and sour chicken that's gluten free and ready to eat. Enjoy