Cook Friendly Chili Chicken

One of my most ardent readers is now one of my very good friend and neighbor. One day over tea we were discussing, how hard it is to make chili-chicken when you have food robbers in the house. The moment we are done with frying the chicken it starts disappearing. Finally the chili-chicken results in lot of chili and very little chicken.

Just to handle this situation I have come up with the cook friendly version where the chicken is not fully cooked after frying and that stops the robbers.

Ingredients

For Marination

• 1lb boneless chicken cut into small pieces
• 2 tbsp. garlic paste
• 1 tbsp. ginger paste
• 2 tbsp. dark soya sauce
• 2 tbsp. chili garlic sauce
• 2 tbsp. green chili sauce
• Salt to state
• 2 tbsp. all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp. corn meal or rice flour
• 4 tbsp.. oil

For Gravy

• 1 large onion cut into cubes
• 1 green bell pepper cut into cubes
• 2 tbsp. chopped garlic
• 1 tbsp. chopped green chilies
• 1/.2 cup chopped green onion.
• 1 tbsp. vinegar
• 2 tbsp. green chili sauce
• 2 tbsp. chili garlic sauce
• 2 tbsp. dark soya sauce
• 2 tbsp. corn starch diluted in half cup water
• Salt to taste

Procedure

Marinates chicken pieces with all ingredients listed under margination without the flours and the oil. Marinate for half an hour. Sprinkle all purpose flour and corn meal over the chicken pieces and coat very gently.

Now heat oil in a wide shallow frying pan. Shallow fry the chicken pieces in one layer first on high heat for a minute and then on medium heat till the meat is ninety percent done. You will see the surface of the chicken pieces are crispy because of the application of corn meal. Remove and reserve for later use.

In the rest of the oil add chopped garlic and fry for a minute before you add onion and green chilies to it. Sauté everything together for a minute or two on high heat. Now add fried chicken pieces to it and mix well. Cook it covered on low heat for couple of minutes. This will cook chicken through and through.

Remove the lid and crank up the heat to high. Add bell pepper and toss everything well. Turn off the heat.

In another sauce pan combine vinegar, chili garlic sauce, green chili sauce, dark soya sauce with half

a cup of water. Bring it to a boil. Bring the heat to the lowest and slowly add diluted corn starch to it.

Crank up the heat while stirring it continuously till you see the sauce thickens up. Add the fried chicken mixture to it and turn off the heat.  check the seasoning and adjust. Garnish with green onion.

If you want dry chili chicken then you add all the sauce directly over the fried chicken mixture and fry everything together till the chicken pieces are well coated with the sauces. Add diluted cornstarch over it and mix on high flame till the moisture dries up. Check the seasoning and adjust. Finish it off with chopped green onion.