Healthier Thai Sweet & Sour Chicken

Bin the take out menus and get cooking rather than dialing!!! When you say sweet and sour chicken, chinese take out normally springs to mind. Chicken coated in a heavy sticky batter in a sickly sweet syrupy sauce! Not good and certainly not healthy!!!

Rather than thinking 'nah, sweet and sour chicken is too unhealthy for me', check out this recipe for a healthy and fresh Thai sweet & sour. A wonderful Thai girl taught me this recupe while on a cookery course on Koh Samui a few years back, and I've been making my own version ever since. (some ingredients have been substituted due to sourcing difficulties).

Ingredients

• 4 chicken legs on the bone
• 1 tbsp of peanut oil
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 stalk of lemongrass, bruised and chopped
• 1 thumb size, peeled and chopped piece of ginger
• 3-4 dried kaffir lime leaves
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped finely
• 1 can of chopped pineapple chunks in juice
• 1 white onion, diced
• 1 cucumber, peeled and cut into bite size
• 3 tbsp of chopped coriander
• 3 tbsp of tamarind juice (you can get tamarind paste in M&S)
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp of Heinz Tomato Ketchup
• 1/2 tsp of palm sugar (brown sugar can be substituted)
• 1 tbsp of corn starch (corn flour mixed with water)
• 2 tbsp of hot sweet chili sauce
• Basmati rice and lime wedges, to serve

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
2. Bake the chicken legs in the oven, in a oven proof dish covered with tin foil. Bake the chicken for 20 minutes.
3. In a wok, add the oil and stir fry the onion, garlic, lemongrass, chili, and ginger.
4. Add the lime leaves, fish sauce, ketchup, pineapple chunks and juice, tamarind juice and palm sugar.
5. Continue to stir fry.
6. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine.
7. Remove the chicken from the oven and pour over the sauce.
8. Return to the oven, and cook for a further 20 minutes.
9. Serve with basmati rice, lime wedges and a  scattering of fresh coriander leaves.