Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

Hello!

So recently I made the baked sweet and sour chicken that I found on Pinterest. Here is the link to the recipe I used:  http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.com/2010/09/baked-sweet-and-sour-chicken-with-fried.html I have to say that it turned out pretty good. Here's a pic of my final product:

I paired brown rice with it. I wanted fried rice but by the time I got done cooking the chicken I was too lazy to make the fried rice. This recipe is definitely time consuming so be prepared for that.

I made a few modifications to the recipe found at the link above that I will inform you of along the way. Here are the ingredients that you will need:

I did not include the chicken in this picture.

Chicken coating:

• 3-4 chicken breasts 
• I used 3 large chicken breasts that was 1.5 pounds total (it seemed like this was too much when at the end I had no extra sauce and it definitely looks like a lot more than the recipe on the other blog used)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup of cornstarch
• I used every bit of the cornstarch. Probably because I had more chicken than the original blogger used and because I had never worked with cornstarch before. A lot of it will stick to the chicken which I was not aware of.
• 2 eggs beaten
• Again I used every bit of the egg. I also had problems with a lot of the egg wanting to stick to the cornstarch. Next time I will do the pieces of chicken 1 by 1 think. Although it will take a lot longer. I don't know we'll see.
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• I used vegetable oil. Worked fine.

Sweet and sour sauce:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• So I know in my picture I have the white zero calorie sucralose sweetener but I actually ended up using brown sugar instead. My mom always made a brown sugar/soy sauce mixture that we used on our chicken fried rice so I thought that brown sugar would be appropriate here. It's also probably why my chicken came out a little darker than the chicken from the other blogger's recipe.
• 4 tablespoons ketchup
• I used Hunt's because that's what I had from couponing. I prefer Heinz for sure.
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt

*Next time I will definitely be increasing the amount of sweet and sour sauce I make. When my chicken was done there was no extra sauce left. I'm a sauce girl. I love sauce. I would probably double the amount I make next time.

Take your chicken breasts and rinse them. Cut the chicken into cubes then salt and pepper to taste. Heat your oil in a skillet on medium to medium high. Next you will need to dip the chicken into the cornstarch and then into the beaten eggs. This process took me a little while because I had difficulty being a first time cornstarch user. Globs of it would stick to my fingers. Once coated and dipped you will cook the chicken in the oil just until the chicken is browned. It won't need to be cooked all the way through since you will be baking it. After the chicken is browned, place it in a greased baking dish. I used a 9x13 so the chicken would all be in one layer and that's what the recipe suggested. Pour the sweet and sour sauce over the chicken and stir carefully. Then place the chicken in the oven and cook in 15 minute intervals for 1 hour stirring the chicken at each interval. Here's what mine looked like when I pulled it from the oven:

Mine had some burned parts on them. I like burn taste so it was fine with me. 45 minutes would probably have been enough time for it to cook though. I had plenty of food. These made excellent leftovers as well.

For an at home Chinese dish I feel like this is definitely a good one. Of course nothing compares to eating Chinese food out but this is definitely a viable alternative. Please let me know if you have any comments, questions or suggestions! Thank you!