Sweet and Sour Chicken

I saw this on Pinterest, it has a ton of pins. It says "baked" sweet and sour chicken, I was very excited. Till I read that you still had to fry the chicken. Bummer. But it looks so good! So I tried it. The chicken does have a nice coating on it, it's not crisp like deep fried chicken, but still a nice coating. Pixie had four servings, the other girls had 2 and three. So I'd say it was a success. Even if it's not a healthy meal.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

(Adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe)

4-5 chicken breasts, cubed
3 eggs scrambled
1 cup corn starch
salt
pepper
onion powder
garlic powder

1/2 cup of oil

Sauce
3 tablespoons tomato paste
5 tablespoon Tamari or soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar, not tightly packed, just scooped
1/4 to 1/3 cup vinegar (I used half rice wine and half white vinegar)
1 cup of water or broth/stock
garlic powder
onion powder

1 white onion- cut into bite sized pieces
1 bell pepper- cut into bite sized pieces

Garnish
Sliced spring onion
Sesame seeds
Chopped cilantro

• Turn oven on to 350 degrees.
• Toss the onion and bell pepper in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
• Scramble eggs and season with salt, pepper, garlic, and onion powder. In a separate bowl or zip top bag, combine corn starch, salt, pepper, onion, and garlic powder.
• Dip the chicken pieces into the egg mixture. (I just put all the chicken into the bowl of egg wash as I cut it into cubes.) 
• Gently shake off excess egg mixture, and transfer a few pieces of chicken to the corn starch mixture. Shake the zip top bag to coat, or stir the chicken pieces in the bowl to coat. Remove the chicken from the corn starch, and gently shake off excess.
• Heat half of the oil in a skillet. Working in batches brown the chicken pieces on all sides, there's no need to cook the chicken through. 
• Place browned chicken pieces over the onion and bell pepper in the baking dish.
• Pour the water into the skillet, with the heat turned off. Stir to remove browned bits. (I didn't have any oil left in my skillet, if you do skim some off first.)
• Combine all remaining sauce ingredients in the skillet- no need to dirty another dish right? Pour the sauce over the chicken and vegetables.
• Bake, uncovered for 45 minutes. Stirring 2-3 times to coat the chicken with the sauce.
• Serve over Jasmine rice, sprinkle with garnishes.

Notes/Some changes for our tastes-

• I used both rice and white vinegar.
•  Tomato paste instead of ketchup.  Ketchup has lots of sugar. There's already 1/2 cup sugar in this!
  
• I used 1/2 cup of brown sugar, not packed at all. The original recipe calls for 3/4 cups of white sugar.
  
• Added oyster sauce- which makes this not gluten free, unless you find a gluten free oyster sauce.
• I used gluten free Tamari.
• I added water for more "sauce" and it thickened up very nicely.
• I added onions and red bell peppers.
  
• I think pineapple chunks would be great in this also. Just use even less sugar, if you use some of the juice.
• I dipped the chicken in the egg wash BEFORE dredging in corn starch.