Garlic Chicken Recipe | Chinese Restaurant Style Garlic Chicken

Today I am so eager and delighted to share this guest post by my dear friend and blogger Divya Pramil who writes You too can cook Indian food. She is one famous cook in the blog world who stuns everyone with her original home cooked recipes and who maintains her consistency in posts every time. Being someone who misses home food and a non-vegetarian I used to admire Divya's cooking and just felt it was so authentic like how my mom used to cook delicious recipes. One day I had contacted her and she was so sweet to reply to my list of doubts, back then I was just a month old in blogging. Our friendship grew from then and there had been not a dull moment with her :-) I am so happy to have found her. Divya to me is not just a great friend but someone who I relate to very well. Although she is younger to me by 2 years I still think she is an amazing cook with loads of creativity and passion to what she does best "cooking". A few recipes of Divya that have really caught my eye are the Chicken monkey bags and sweet corn rasam... Divya has many hats ~ blogger, event hostess, photographer, award distributor and you can go on and on. Many other blogger friends have also told me how they admire her creativity and dedication when it comes to blogging

Oh one other thing that can give a great insight about Divya is her love for chicken, she says it this way "love affair for chicken" :P and I would tell her " I wonder how many more chicken's have you killed???" and her response will be "Oh i did not the butcher did :P"... So needless to say what the guest post is about...its Chicken indeed :-). So if I had to tell about Divya in 5 words this would be it "pink-hearted chicken lover friend", why pink thats another thing she is crazy about...

All of you already know about the 60 days to Christmas Event which we both are gladly hosting, well its a work of good friendship. You can follow the details here. Divya is also hosting a new SNC South vs North event this is a monthly one where one team challenges the other with a recipe, please find the details here

Like my other guest post I do like to interview my guest for all of us to get to know them better, so here are my difficult questions for which Divya had gladly answered :-)

1. I know that you tend to not re-heat food because it is not healthy how do u manage to do it???

Aha Sis you do have a very sharp memory, I think I shared this secret with you ages ago..lol.

Ok so yes I hate reheating food more than once, the easy and manageable thing I do is prepare only the quantity required for the day. And what if there is any excess? I re-use only once then I close my eyes and just discard them away. It’s really not a healthy practice to keep reheating the food, I have heard a lot of controversies about it and prefer not to risk my loved ones.

2. How did you convince your veg eating husband to enjoy non-veg food?

Ha ha ha good question Sis. My hubby was a pure vegan only until he found me. Am a pure non-vegetarian right from birth lol. After marriage I prepared some tasty dishes that made him drool and come my way. Also he did not want to irritate me with his picky eating so he never argues about food.

3. Tell us 5 things about you that we do not know

·         Am a cartoon lover and am crazy about Disney fairy tale movies. I don’t watch Serials. I hate them to the core..lol.

·         Am a fussy eater I am really picky when it comes to food

·         I love dancing.

·         I always overdo work.

·         I love miniatures.

4. What is your most famous signature dish at home

Minced mutton curry (http://youtoocancookindianfood.blogspot.in/2012/10/kothu-kari-kulambu-minced-lamb-curry.html) and Okra Sambar. There are many authentic recipes but these are my hubby’s favorites.

5. As a blogger what keeps you motivated to deliver posts every other day and how blogging has changed your life

Love for cooking and the comments & lovely mails I receive from friends and subscribers motivate me to deliver more. Blogging has obviously changed my life; it has got me an identity and really good new friends. It has been my stress buster at times and has always kept me diverted. My writing style has tremendously changed and photography style too. I keep learning new things every single day and am sure that I have spent a valuable time here. But sometimes I do feel that I don’t have space for my own life, but still it keeps me busy and diverted from worries. So I love blogging anyway.

Over to Divya's post 

Chinese Style Garlic Chicken

Today am really happy to make a guest post for one of my loving blogger friend Priya.R. I call her Sis lovingly and we do have a lot of similar likes and dislikes and that’s not something to be spoken of, because great minds do think alike right? As soon as she asked me for a guest post I agreed and she left me with no options she said “Divya I definitely need a chicken recipe from you” that was such a kind order and I obliged immediately. So here I go, I selected one of my most favorite appetizer that I keep repeating at home. I had been saving this recipe in my mind for my blog but here now this is for you Sis.

Garlic chicken is one of my favorite starter or appetizer; it has both dry as well as the saucy or curry version.  Whenever I place an order at the restaurants for starters, it’s the Chinese appetizers that I prefer more and that’s what everybody else do, because they are so teasingly yum. But I prefer not to order the saucy version as you will be cheated with more quantity of sauce rather than the chicken pieces. Some restaurants do cheat us with these kinds of recipes, they coat the chicken pieces more in batter and you will find only the fried batter pieces not the chicken cubes. Rarely will I find any chicken pieces in the saucy versions, this is what I hate and so prefer to make my favorite recipes at home. This garlic chicken is one such recipe in which I got really disappointed with the ones served at the restaurants and finally tried them at home and succeeded.

I have tasted garlic chicken in many restaurants and every time it tasted similar to chilli chicken and the sauce tasted just like the Manchurian sauce, also another noticeable thing is that the recipe did not give out the garlic flavor, either the sauce dominated the recipe or the bell peppers and onions caught the predominant place. So for a long time I thought there was not much difference between the Chilli chicken and garlic chicken, until a day when I tasted the real garlic chicken in a Chinese restaurant. Garlic was featured well, its flavor dominated the recipe and to my surprise I found no bell peppers or onions except for some dry red chillies in it. The chicken pieces in it were coated with a thin layer of batter and so had a slight crispy touch with mild sweetness and the soy sauce gave it a real nice color. It was not spicy though it had the addition of red chillies to it. I loved it to the core and was happy that finally I had succeeded in finding the perfect garlic chicken of my taste. I tried to replicate the same at home and I succeeded in it. I always use the available ingredients from the pantry and replicate the recipe, so here comes a Chinese style recipe made in an Indian home with easily available ingredients. This is always a hit at home, and everyone including my dad who is not a Chinese food lover loves this recipe. Let's now check what’s needed and how to prepare this.

Ingredients

Serves 1

Total Preparation Time – 20 to 30 minutes

1.       Boneless Chicken – 200 grams

2.      Garlic pods – 4

3.      Dry red chillies – 3 to 4

4.      Tomato sauce – 2 spoons

5.      Soy sauce – 1 spoon

6.      All purpose flour / Maida – 2 spoons

7.      Corn flour – ½ spoon

8.      Pepper powder – 1/8 spoon 

9.      Sugar – 3 pinches

10.   Sugar – As per taste

11.    Butter – 2 spoons

12.   Oil – For deep frying chicken

Preparation Method

·         Wash chicken pieces well in water and chop into medium sized cubes. Add corn flour, all purpose flour (Maida), salt, pepper powder to chicken pieces and mix well. Set aside for few minutes.

·         Meanwhile peel and chop garlic finely. Using a scissors chop dry red chillies and set aside.

·         Place a frying pan on flame and pour oil into it. After it heats up deep fry the chicken pieces until it turns slightly brownish.  Remove the pieces from flame and set aside.

·         Now take another pan and add butter to it. After it melts add chopped garlic and sauté for a few minutes.

·         Then add the dry red chillies and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes. 

·         Now add salt and stir well.

·         Pour in the tomato sauce and soy sauce, sugar and stir well.

·         Add the fried chicken pieces and stir well. The sauce mixture will stick to the chicken pieces well.

·         Add some more pepper powder and sauté for two more minutes and remove from flame serve.

TIP 1: Garnish with spring onions if you wish. Also you can add some diced onions and bell peppers after sautéing garlic and red chillies if you wish.

TIP 2: Never deep fry chicken with using a high flame mode, the outer batter will get fried easily and the inner portion will remain uncooked so fry the pieces in a low flame. And always make sure the oil is hot and ready to fry the chicken pieces.

TIP 3: If you need a spicier version you can also add some finely chopped green chillies.

TIP 4: Vegans can try the same with either mushrooms or cauliflower florets.

That’s it an easy and delicious garlic chicken is now ready!! Serve as sides or appetizers!!