Sweet and Sour Chicken FAIL

"My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor." -Phyllis Diller

Karl and I were riding high on our Kung Pao success, so we decided to run with this new-found asian-cooking ability and tackle one of my all-time favorite meals: Sweet and Sour Chicken.

Now I have to be straight up with you. As much as I greatly appreciate really good quality food, one of my guiltiest pleasures is Chinese-from-the-mall sweet and sour chicken. Those perfectly breaded chicken pieces dipped in that neon red sauce makes my mouth water every time. Call me crazy- but I could eat this stuff almost every night. I won't...but I could.

We found ourselves back on AllRecipes, and before long, we had a recipe that looked workable. After a quick trip to the grocery, things were under way. So then...what went wrong? It started when I realized just how low my blood sugar had gotten. We'd pushed dinner all the way back to 9 pm and the heat from the stove was nothing short of grueling. It wasn't pleasant, and I felt grumpy.

Karl took on the breading and frying of the chicken while I tackled the sweet and sour sauce. I'll tell you now- the sauce was more of a learning experience than anything else. Here's why: first up, we bought crushed pineapple instead of chunks- a mistake that was only a problem because the recipe requires the separation of the pineapple from the pineapple juice. Lesson learned? Be aware of what ingredients you'll need. Faux pas number two- I tried adding a bit of corn starch after the sauce had been mixed. A valuable lesson here too: always dissolve corn starch in water before adding it to a mixture or it will likely not mix correctly. In this case, we were left with balls of corn starch floating around precariously in the sauce. Last mistake is what threw us over the edge. It turns out that where the recipe first says pineapple, the writer meant pineapple juice. (There is a difference- I'm sure of it!) This was a resounding reminder to always thoroughly read through a recipe before starting.

At this point, we counted our losses and chucked the sauce. I drove up to the store, bought a can of chunked pineapples, and we tried one more time- this time according to the recipe. The only difference we had was replacing the red food coloring (seriously?) with maraschino cherry juice and 86ing the carrots.

The result? Not good.

Karl ate most of his but ultimately opted for some Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cereal. I managed to down most of mine as well, but all things considered- it just wasn't that good. Now I could be wrong here- maybe the difficulties in cooking ruined the end result for us- but I doubt it. This was just not meant to be. It wasn't sweet...it wasn't sour...and, oh man, it was just a huge let-down.

HOWEVER- I would really love a delicious, working recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken. If you have one, I beg you to send it to me and Karl so we can try it out! (newchefs@gmail.com) Or...try the recipe yourself and tell us what you think. Maybe we're wrong about it (but I doubt it).

As always, thanks for reading. Here's the link to the original recipe.

And here's a pic of Lucy the dog to make you smile:

Kick Things Off with a (Kung) Pao!

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all." -Harriet Van Horne

At some point last fall, it came into my head that it was time to learn to cook. Like...really cook. Simple stir-fry dinners were growing tiresome, my budget forbade me from eating out every night, and the thought of coming home to a culinary event suddenly seemed, well... refreshing. So I picked up the figurative spatula, convinced Karl to jump on the band-wagon as my sous-chef, and jumped right into the frying pan.

Since then, Karl and I have reached a level of co-chefdom, and we've managed to learn a thing or two about creating delicious food. However, we've still got a lot to learn!

I'll start things off with one of the good and follow up with one of the bad...

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When K and I are looking for inspiration, we tend to jump to All Recipes for ideas. On this particular day, the front page featured Kung Pao Chicken...

"Spicy chicken with peanuts, similar to what is served in Chinese restaurants. It is easy to make, and you can be as sloppy with the measurements as you want."

...and we were sold. Now, to be honest, the extent of my cooking- as far as asian cuisine is concerned- can be written off as little more than sauteing vegetables and chicken in a disgusting amount of soy sauce. But as it turns out, there's a lot more to that token asian flavor then sodium and MSG. K and I found ourselves purchasing a lot of firsts for the kitchen- white cooking wine, white vinegar, and most interesting of all: sesame oil. (As someone whose grown up using either vegetable oil or olive oil every time he cooks, seeing shelves of 'the other oils' was mind-boggling.) That said, sesame oil is not exactly the cheapest... though I'd wager that any local asian market would sell it for a more reasonable price.

We followed the recipe (by Arlena at AllRecipes) almost to a T, but the next night we tweaked things a bit to have more sauce and a hint of citrus. And yes- we did make this two nights in a row! Our recipe and a link to the original can be found after the jump.

Last things to note:

-If you decide to cook rice with this, start it early! We didn't...and had to wait 40 minutes to have a complete meal.

-Big thanks to Jon at Daily Ham for inadvertently inspiring me to start blogging.

-Please feel free to send me suggestions for things to cook. K and I will do the experimenting and get back to you with a good recipe!

Thanks for reading and happy cooking!

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Kung Pao Chicken

Prep Time: 30 mins

Cook Time: 30 mins

Ready in: ~1 hr 30 min (if you're not waiting for rice)

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into chunks
• 3 tbsp white wine
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp sesame oil
• 3 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 4 tbsp water
• 2-4 dried chili peppers, chopped
• 2 tsp distilled white vinegar
• 2 tbsp orange juice (about half an orange of juice)
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• 4 ounces chopped peanuts

Directions

1. To Make Marinade: Combine 1 tbsp white wine, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil and 1 tbsp cornstarch/water mixture and mix together. Place chicken pieces in a glass dish or bowl and add marinade. Toss lightly to coat. Cover dish and place in refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
2. To Make Sauce: In a small saucepan, combine 2 tbsp white wine, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp sesame oil, 2 tbsp cornstarch/water mixture, chili pepper, vinegar and orange juice. Mix together and add green onion, garlic, and peanuts. Heat sauce slowly until it smells sweet.
3. Meanwhile, remove chicken from marinade and saute in a large skillet until meat is white and juices run clear. When sauce is aromatic, add sauteed chicken to it and let simmer together until sauce thickens.

Original recipe can be found here.