{"id":40,"date":"2006-01-19T17:06:15","date_gmt":"2006-01-19T23:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php\/archives\/recipes\/40"},"modified":"2006-06-06T13:46:37","modified_gmt":"2006-06-06T18:46:37","slug":"recipe-sweet-and-sour-chicken-cheng-tu-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/?p=40","title":{"rendered":"Recipe &#8211; Sweet and sour chicken Cheng Tu Style"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I was cleaning up the refrigerator of leftovers, both fresh and frozen, and ended up making one of our favorite stand-by. I have been preparing this great Szechuan recipe on a regular basis ever since I first learned it while taking Chinese cooking classes at the Chen School of Art in Montr\u00c3\u00a9al close to 25 years ago. It is very easy to prepare and I have cooked it with chicken, pork filet, beef filet mignon, scallops, or shrimps since then. It is normally served on a bed of stir-fried spinach, but I have rarely made it like this as I normally serve it with mixed stir-fried vegetables. The recipe I am presenting today uses what I had on hand in the refrigerator last Sunday, but could be made with a wide variety of vegetables. I also experiment a lot with the sauce&#8217;s ingredients to make it even more versatile. On Sunday I replaced the chicken with a medium-sized pork filet, that I had frozen since before the holidays, cut in 1\/4&quot; thick diagonal slices, but any meat or seafood can do in a pinch. I hope that you enjoy this quickly prepared recipe as much as we have done over the years.<\/p>\n<p>Ingredients<\/p>\n<p>1 pound chicken breast meat cut is bite-sized cubes <br \/>1 tsp soy sauce<br \/>1 egg yolk<br \/>2 tbs cornstarch<br \/>2 tbs sunflower oil<br \/>1&quot; piece of ginger peeled and chopped finely<br \/>3 cloves of garlic chopped finely<br \/>2 green onions sliced thinly<br \/>1\/2 pound broccoli florets cut in bite-sized pieces<br \/>1\/2 pound cauliflower florets cut in bite-sized pieces<br \/>1 medium cucumber peeled and seeded cut in bite-sized pieces<br \/>1 small can of sliced peeled water chestnuts<br \/>1 can of baby corns cut in bite-sized pieces<br \/>1\/2 pound mushrooms sliced<br \/>2 tbs sunflower oil<br \/>1 1\/2 cup of chicken stock (can be made with powder)<br \/>3 tbs sugar<br \/>3 tbs sherry vinegar<br \/>1 tbs soy sauce<br \/>2 tbs cooking sherry<br \/>1 1\/2 tsp Chinese chili paste or to taste<br \/>2 tbs cornstarch<br \/>2 tbs water<br \/>1 tsp sesame oil<\/p>\n<p>Preparation<\/p>\n<p>1. Mix the chicken cubes with the egg yolk and the soy sauce with you hands.<br \/>2. Add the cornstarch and mix until the mixture clumps together.<br \/>3. Chop vegetables and mushrooms, and put in a large bowl.<br \/>4. Chop ginger, garlic and green onions and put in a small bowl.<br \/>5. Put chicken stock, sugar, sherry, vinegar, soy sauce, and chili paste in a measuring cup and mix well together.<br \/>6. Put 2 tbs cornstarch and 2 tbs water in a small bowl and mix well together with finger.<br \/>7. Heat a large wok over high heat and add 2 tbs of oil.<br \/>8. Stir-fry chicken until firm and no longer pink in center. The chicken will easily unclump when cooked. Put it back in its bowl when cooked.<br \/>9. Put another 2 tbs of oil in the hot wok and add the ginger, garlic, and green onion followed by the vegetables and mushrooms.<br \/>10. Stir-fry until cooked but still a bit crunchy.<br \/>11. Add sauce mixture and bring to boil covered.<br \/>12. Add the reserved cooked chicken and bring to boil again.<br \/>13. Add the cornstarch\/water mixture to thicken and bring to boil while stirring.<br \/>14. Add sesame oil and stir well to add shine and taste to the mixture.<br \/>15. Serve on warmed plates.<\/p>\n<p>Lucito<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I was cleaning up the refrigerator of leftovers, both fresh and frozen, and ended up making one of our favorite stand-by. I have been preparing this great Szechuan recipe on a regular basis ever since I first learned it while taking Chinese cooking classes at the Chen School of Art in Montr\u00c3\u00a9al close &#8230; <a title=\"Recipe &#8211; Sweet and sour chicken Cheng Tu Style\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/?p=40\" aria-label=\"Read more about Recipe &#8211; Sweet and sour chicken Cheng Tu Style\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-dishes","category-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.igourmand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}