My Accidental Sriracha Chicken Dinner

This recipe is part of the series The Recipe I Mastered This Year

I sort of stumbled onto this recipe by happy accident. In a hurry at the supermarket, I bought a bottle of sriracha sauce instead of the usual red chilli sauce, and didn't know what to do with it. Thus began a hunt for recipes.

The first time I used the sauce, it was too spicy. So I added more honey. And then, it turned out too sweet. The second time, I nailed the ratio of sauce to honey, but the dish was too watery. As I tinkered with the recipe each time, adding pepper and chilli flakes to tone down the sweetness of honey, in search of the perfect balance (my family prefers things on the spicy side), I eventually switched the honey out for sugar. And now, it's sort of become a family favourite. Served with steamed rice, the chicken carries a hint of sweetness and kick of spice, which truly, is just perfect.

Recipe for Shaheen Upade's Sriracha Chicken

Ingredients
250 g boneless chicken
3-4 tbsp Sriracha sauce
3 tsp sugar
6-7 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tsp cornflour
1 cup water
1 tsp pepper
1.5 tbsp soy sauce
Salt, to taste,
Spring onion greens, to garnish

Method
Marinate the chicken with salt, pepper and cornflour for 20 mins. Shallow in a hot pan and set aside.
Add olive oil to the pan. Now add in the garlic and saute till it begins to brown
Add in the soy sauce, sriracha sauce, sugar and water and let it simmer. Mix in two teaspoons of cornflour in water and add to the pan till it thickens.
Now add the fried chicken pieces and coat with the mix. Allow to cook through.
Garnish with spring onion greens.
Serve with burnt garlic rice or steamed rice.

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