Hey guys! Today I’m going to share one of my favourite dishes Honey Soy Chicken. I know you are all probably gonna think ‘oh no not another one!’ Well let me just tell you that this recipe might not be what you expected. It’s not the typical Honey Soy Chicken you often see online so if you are not after that one then you are in the right place and in for a treat with this Honey Soy Chicken recipe and I recommend you give this recipe a go.
Honestly it’s one of those recipes I came up with sometime last week when I had only chicken in the fridge along with some vegetables I had in my veggies compartment. I was craving something spicy and coated with flour so I thought why not use what I had and see what will happen. What happened was better than expected; it was soo good even my partner wants to add this dish into our fortnightly meal plan.
The reason I call this dish honey soy chicken is because I use honey and soy sauce as a few of the seasoning I added in my seasoning sauce. This recipe is a lot healthier than the classic honey soy dishes where they deep-fry their flour coated meat. It’s quite oily and I really wouldn’t want to eat deep fried every week so I oven bake this one instead. I would say this recipe is very easy so please do give it a go and let me know what you think.
Note: I guess I probably don’t need to point this out, but since many people often forget and ignore what they eat I might as well mention it here. Try to eat as little deep fried food as possible because the obvious reason is that it’s very unhealthy. The reason it’s very unhealthy is because of the oil used to deep fry the food, especially from restaurants and fast food stores, the most common oil used in those places are often pure animals fat, cotton seed oil and vegetables oil. I know that most people use vegetable oil in their cooking, but I recommend you using olive oil for salad or food cooked on low heat (because of it’s low smoking point), coconut oil and ghee are great for daily cooking (they have higher smoking point also contain health benefits) and maybe sunflower oil for shallow fry (it has one of the highest smoking points). So most oil is saturated fat especially when they reach their smoking point in cooking and turn carcinogenic that is very bad for your health. The oil I mentioned as my recommendation is the oil I find healthiest in my diet. In any case we are going to use quite a small amount of oil in this recipe.
Stir-fry vegetables are best when they aren’t cooked until they are soft; it’s great to eat stir-fry vegetables while they retain their crunchy texture and are not over cooked that will destroy the nutrients and vitamins in the plants.
HONEY SOY CHICKEN
Prep-Time: 30 mins Serve: 3
Cooking Time: 25 mins
Ingredients
5 chicken thigh fillets, cut into pieces
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly grounded black pepper/ Sichuan pepper
1 tsp sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
a thumb size ginger, graded
1 carrot, sliced
1 bunch asparagus, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
half 1/4 green cabbage, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp chilli bean paste / 1/2 tbsp if you don’t eat spicy food
(can be bought in Chinese market)
3 tbsp coconut oil
coating flour
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp chilli powder
pinch of salt and black/ Sichuan pepper
stir-fry sauce
1/4-1/3 cup organic soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp honey
pinch of salt
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
Method
Marinate the chicken pieces with salt, pepper and sesame oil and then massage until the salt dissolves and then leave it to set for 15-30 minutes.
Preheat the oven at 200C on Fan force. Line your baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
Mix the coating flour (see above) ingredients together. Place the marinated chicken pieces in the seasoned flour in batches and coat each piece of meat till it is covered. Once fully coated, position the coated chicken pieces on the lined baking tray and spray some oil on the coated chicken.
Bake the chicken pieces for 15 minutes or until the side facing down turns golden. Remove from the oven and turn them over. Bake the other side for another 15 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven and set aside.
Heat the coconut oil in a wok over medium heat and once the oil is heated add in the ginger and garlic. Stir to cook for about 3 minutes or until they start to fragrant and then add in the chilli bean paste. Once the chilli bean paste is added, stir-fry the sauce and cook for another 3 minutes or until the sauce starts to bubble around the sides of the wok.
Add in all of the vegetables and turn the heat to high and stir to cook them until they soften from their raw form.
Make space in the centre of the wok and then add in the baked chicken pieces. Stir to combine and coat the chicken with the sauce for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and serve with steamed rice.
