Chili chicken(Indo-Chinese)

Chili chicken is basically a Chinese dish. But we made it as our version of Chinese chili chicken and became very popular dish in all over India...In most of the restaurant menu the chili chicken is considering as a special dish Vegetarians have their own version of this dish with cauliflower(Gobi). Last week we went to one of the good Indian restaurant in our neighborhood. They are serving this "gobi Manchurian" as the "HOLY" special.. 

When I heard about chili during our first visit to US, I thought it was one of our chili dishes (chili chicken, chili beef etc). Then i came to realize that it is a dish with ground beef, chili peppers ,tomatoes and kidney beans. So do not confuse with that chili and this chili dish. There are varieties of chili chicken recipes  available. It is available in dried version and in gravy version ( My LH like the roasted version).. When I was searching for this indo-Chinese recipe i got a wonderful recipe from the "Vahrehvah" chef..I tried the same...first 2-3 times it didn't come out as I expected (my LH also felt the same!)..After few tries i got the trick and also  i got some good feed back from some of  our friends those who got a chance to taste this dish... 

Nowadays i am looking for dishes which takes only less time for cooking because my little one is making me busy almost all the time. He always needs mama to play with him.so my visit to kitchen during the daytime is limited only to grab his food.

Cooking this dish is not that difficult but be careful while  frying the chicken. The success of the dish lies with how well we fried the chicken.Hope you will try this recipe ....

Cooking time : 30 minute

Ingredients

Chicken :15 small pieces 
Red chili: 6 nos 
Bell pepper (capsicum): 1/2 portion 
White onion : 1 big 
Ginger : 2-3 chunks
Garlic: 6 pods
Cashew nut : 6 no
spring onion: 2
Soy sauce: 3 tsp 
Seasme oil/any oil: 4 tsp 
Chili Garlic sauce: 2 tsp 
Food color : a pinch(optional) 
Corn flour : 1 tsp 
Sugar : 1/4 tsp 

  

Marinade of the chicken

Cornflour : 2 tbs
Egg : 1 no 
Pepper powder : 2 tsp 
Salt : to taste 
Oil for frying 

Preparation 

Prior to cooking:

1.Clean and cut the chicken into medium bite size pieces.(use boneless or with bone).

2. Make a mix of the salt, egg, pepper powder and the cornflour.Add the chicken into the mix.Keep it aside for 10 minute.

3.Cut the onion and bell capsicum into small square pieces..Seperate each pieces

4.Cut the garlic and ginger lengthwize into small pieces.

5.split the redchili into 2 pieces

6. Add tsp of corn flour in 1/4 cup luke warm water and prepare a syrup

How to Prepare

Step 1. Heat oil in a pan. Deep fry the chicken pieces.So try to avoid crowding the pan by adding all the chicken pieces together. so do the frying in 2-3 batches.

Step2: Heat oil in a pan,Add red chili, ginger garlic cashews one by one and let them saute for seconds. 

Step 3: add the onion,capsicum into it let the onion to fry for 3 minutes..not necessary to deep fry the onion..

Step 4:Add the fried chicken pieces into it ..stir well.

step 5: Add the chili powder , pepper powder and chilli garlic paste and soysauce one by one..Mix well

step 6: just add 1/4 tsp of sugar  and salt to taste(usually using the brown sugar)

step 7: Add 1/2 cup of water and food color to the mix.And also add 2 tsp of corn flour syrup.

Step 8: cook until the gravy get thickens,otherwise dry it according to your taste

Step 9: garnish with corinader leaves and spring onion( i haven't use that in this recipe)

The delicious chili chicken is ready to have..Have it with Egg Fried Rice

Cook'sTip

• Do not add more cornflour into the chicken while marinating.
• Do not add more capsicum too.Use different colors (green orange  red) it will make your dish look so nice
• Do not add more than a half cup of water if you like to make a chili chicken dried version.
• The best part of chicken for this dish is the thigh meat..you can use the whole chicken too..(here i used the whole chicken)
• Use sesame oil for preparing the dish..It will give more taste.