Fragrant Dry Chicken (Gan Xiang Ji)

This recipe serves 5 to 6.

Ingredients:

• 1kg chicken (cut into medium-sized pieces)
• 30g curry leaves
• 50g garlic (whole, remove skin and fry till dark brown)
• 50g ginger (retain skin and slice)
• 3 fresh chilli (about 50g, sliced)

Ingredients for Seasoning:

• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 50ml ginger juice
• 1 egg
• 80ml water
• 50g potato starch
• 50g plain flour

Ingredients for Sauce:

• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons Thai chilli sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon lime juice
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon light soya sauce and some dark soya sauce (just to make the chicken look slightly darker)
• 1/5 torch ginger flower (finely sliced)

Method:

1. Marinate chicken with seasoning ingredients for one to two hours.
2. Heat oil to about 80% hot (when you see small bubbles emerging from base of wok), put chicken pieces in and fry till golden brown.  Remove from wok.  Don’t use boiling-hot oil as the meat will end up burnt.
3. Heat some oil in the wok and quickly fry curry leaves, garlic and ginger over high heat.
4. Pour the sauce in, put fried chicken pieces in, mix well and serve.

Note: This recipe is from the Zi Yean Restaurant and is a family favourite.