Sticky Chicken

Based on the American take away favourite, General Tso's chicken, this recipe is a healthier alternative to the sweet, heavily fried favourite. For veggies, chicken could easily be substatuted with firm tofu. I find that freezing the tofu and then defrosting it before use gives the tofu that firm texture that you find in restaurants and makes it a lot easier to fry.
Using a good wok is the key to success with this recipe, other cheaper woks tend to cause sticking leaving you with a hefty washing up load. Other than that, this recipe is simple, fast and delicious!

Sticky Chicken (serves 2)

Ingredients:

Sauce

• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup mange tout
• 1 1/2 peppers, sliced vertically
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp root ginger, peeled and minced
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp dry chilli flakes

Chicken and coating

• 2 eggs whites
• 3 tbsp cornflour, mixed enough water to form a liquid
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 chicken breasts, sliced into bite size pieces

Method:

For sauce:

• mix together the cornflour with water until smooth and pourable. Stir in the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, chilli flakes and brown sauce and mix until well combined.

For chicken:

• Whisk together the egg whites, cornflour (with water), salt and pepper. Stir in the chicken slices.

• Heat the wok over a medium-high heat. Add 1 tbsp of sunflower oil (or any other flavourless oil). Piece by piece, remove the chicken from the chicken coating, ensuring at all excess coating has dripped off (this will stop you making a horrible mess of the bottom of your wok) and add to the hot wok.
• Cook stirring occasionally until the chicken has turned golden brown.
• Set chicken aside.
• Add the sauce to the wok and cook the mange tout and peppers until they are tender and the sauce has thickened. This should only take a few minutes, the vegetables should still have a bite to them
  
• Add the chicken (and juices) back to the wok to coat with the sauce.
• Serve with brown rice and garnish with sesame seeds.

Please excuse the bland photograph. Unfortunately I don't own a digital slr so I'm trying to make do with a crappy compact. I don't know how compacts manage to instantly make food look so rough so a little imagination may be needed.