https://www.copymethat.com/r/P7DeP6B6n/lemon-chicken/
33379633
2E5n1dU
P7DeP6B6n
2024-06-18 22:08:37
Lemon Chicken
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Ingredients
- subheading: Ingredients:
- Boneless, skinless chicken breast (鸡胸肉), 250g.
- Lemon (柠檬), ½. Zested and juiced.
- subheading: Marinade:
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp sugar
- ¼ tsp white pepper powder
- 1 tsp liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍兴酒)
- 1 tsp light soy sauce (生抽)
- subheading: Coating for the chicken:
- 1 tbsp cornstarch (生粉) to initially the chicken
- 6 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 egg for the batter
- subheading: Sauce:
- 50mL water
- 1 tsp stock concentrate (鸡汁/瑶柱汁/鲍鱼汁)
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp sugar
- ¼ tsp instant custard powder (吉士粉) -or- milk powder
- Garlic, 2 cloves. Gently smashed. Fried when making the sauce.
- Ginger (姜), 1 inch. Gently smashed. Fried when making the sauce.
- Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍兴酒), 1 tsp. For use while making the sauce.
- Slurry of a tsp cornstarch (生粉) with a tbsp water. To thicken the sauce.
- Optional garnish: lemon rinds -or- wedges, a touch of cilantro (香菜).
Steps
- Butterfly the chicken breast, and cut grooves into it in a checkerboard pattern. Slice into the chicken breast and unfold it. Slice little grooves into the chicken about 1 cm apart, then flip the guy 90 degrees and do the same to get a sort of checkered pattern. This will help the marinade go into the chicken.
- Add the marinade and marinate the chicken for at least 30 minutes. Really do a bang up job massaging that all into the chicken.
- Zest the lemon half, then cut into slices and squeeze out the juice. We’ll keep these in the same bowl together as they’ll be added in the same time.
- Smash the garlic cloves and ginger; mix together the ingredients for the sauce; mix together your slurry. Keep the slurry separate from the rest of the sauce as it’ll go in at the very end.
- Crack an egg and beat it until no stray strands of egg white remain. Mix in 6 tbsp of the cornstarch, stirring until a smooth batter forms. In a separate plate, pour out enough cornstarch to do a proper coating. Apologies for the lack of measuring with regards to the loose cornstarch - I’d venture you’d want at least a cup.
- Add a tbsp of cornstarch to the chicken, then coat it completely with the batter, and finally flip both sides onto the dry cornstarch to coat. The initial bit of cornstarch is to help the batter stick better to the chicken.
- In a wok with a couple cups of oil, heat it up until about 180C. Toss in the chicken and fry for about five minutes at 170C, flipping occasionally. As soon as you toss in the chicken it’ll lower the temperature, which’s why we overshot things at first. We flipped twice - once at the 2 minute mark, and again at the 4 minute mark. If you’ve got a bit peaking out when you flip, spoon over some hot oil with your spatula as it cooks. Once the chicken’s lightly golden brown, take it out.
- Heat the oil up until 200C, then dip the cutlet in again for 30 seconds. Transfer over to a paper towel lined plate. The second fry is to make the coating slightly crispier.
- In a separate pot over medium flame, add in a ½ tbsp of oil and fry the garlic and ginger until fragrant, ~30 seconds. Swirl in the liaojiu wine, then go in with the sauce. Let it boil for about a minute, then remove the garlic and the ginger. Add in the lemon juice and zest, simmer for ~15 seconds, then go in with the slurry. Let it boil together for ~30 seconds til thickened. After all that, set the sauce aside.
- Chop the cutlet into roughly 1.5 inch by 2 inch pieces. Toss on a plate and smother with your lemon sauce.
- Garnish with either the lemon rind or extra lemon slices, and optionally a touch of cilantro. If you had no other plan for the other half of the lemon, using lemon slices adds a nice fragrance to the dish. The cilantro’s totally superfluous, but hey, green things look nice.