Basic Recipe for Chinese Sweet and Sour Anything (Orange Chicken)

**The coating for the meat is pretty much the same, the difference is in the sauce.

Sorry I don’t have exact measurements, this is just what I use and you can base it on your taste preference:

For the coating, prepare a mixture of:

• Corn starch
• Potato starch
• Tapioca starch
• Flour
• Garlic powder
• Powdered onion

To prepare the Sweet & Sour sauce(adjust amount to your liking):

• Ketchup
• Sugar
• Pineapple juice/orange juice
• Rice vinegar (omit this if you want Orange Chicken)
• Light soy sauce
• Garlic powder
• Chili sauce, optional for a spicy kick
• Plum sauce, optional to have a sweet fruity taste

Any combination of those starches/flour would work. Prepare your protein (chicken, pork, tofu), then add egg whites, dash of sugar (optional), lightly add salt and pepper and let sit for 20 minutes, preferably overnight. Then coat the protein pieces with the flour/starch mixture well. Shake off extra flour before frying and deep fry. Set aside.

Add bell pepper if desired, fresh vegetables give such a nice color and flavor to the dish.

In a wok or saucepan, add all the ingredients and let simmer to let reduce, then add the corn starch slurry (1:1 ratio water/corn starch) to thicken up.

Next add in the sweet and sour sauce. Bring the sauce to a boil and add in the fried meat.Toss the meat evenly with the sweet and tangy sauce and we are done!

The secret for this dish is the use of ketchup, sugar, and pineapple juice and vinegar to create the perfect balance of sweetness and sourness for the dish. The ketchup gives that yummy color.