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Our Ultimate Sweet & Sour Chicken Balls

Our Ultimate Sweet & Sour Chicken Balls

I say ultimate because you’ll never get anything like these in your friendly Chinese! We adopted an American technique and marinaded the Chicken breasts cubes in Buttermilk. It soaks in really well and tenderises the meat. We also bought some Mono-Sodium Glutamate from the local Chinese supermarket, which added a real (not so authentic) Chinese style.

Ingredients for the Chicken Balls:-

2 Chicken breasts, cut into cubes
450ml of Buttermilk
1/8 of a teaspoon of Mono-Sodium Glutamate
Garlic Salt
Onion Salt

Batter:-

2 Eggs
Plain Flour (Gluten free for us)
Soda Water
Garlic Salt
Turmeric

Additional flour
1 Egg, battered for an Egg wash

Method:-

(1) Add add the marinade ingredients to a bowl and mix well.
(2) Stir in the Chicken cubes and cover.
(3) Allow to marinade in the fridge for 30 minutes.
(4) Mix the batter ingredients to form a reasonably sticky batter.
(5) Remove the Chicken in small batches and dredge in Flour.
(6) Dunk in the Egg wash and then Flour again.
(7) Preheat a deep fat fryer to 180c.
(8) dip eat piece of Chicken in the batter mix and fry in small batches making sure they don’t stick together.
(9) When they float and are browned, remove and drain on kitchen paper.

We used Sue’s Sweet and Sour sauce recipe and just served over boiled Rice with a sprinkling of sliced Spring Onions.

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DIY Lacto-fermented Kimchi

There are probably a million Kimchi recipes and most will be family versions which are not written down as such. There is a tale behind this one. We bought a bag of Bean Sprouts for a stir-fry three weeks ago and as usual there were far too many for the two of us. So in a jar they went!

There’s a lot of “Witchcraft” spouted about the health benefits of Lacto-fermented vegetables. I’m sure it’s probably better for us than industrially made pickles. But we make it more because it’s fun, it tastes good and it’s a way of preserving bits and bobs which would otherwise die in the bottom of the fridge….

Ingredients:-

¾ of a bag of Bean Sprouts
2 small Onions
1/8 of a Red Cabbage
4 dried red Chilli pods
2 tsp Chilli Powder
Salt for brine
2 500ml Kilner type clip top jars

Method:-

(1) Make a 2% brine. That’s about 4 heaped table spoons of Salt to 1 litre of water. Allow this to cool to room temperature.
(2) Slice the larger items.
(3) Add the mixed ingredients to the jars and allow 1cm space at the top.
(4) Pour the brine over the veg and make sure everything is covered.
(5) Clip the lids and pop in a cupboard for 3+ weeks.
(6) Give the jams a swirl once in a while.

Once the fermentation has finished the gas production will settle down and your Kimchi will last for Months. Well not here it wont!

 

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