Sweet and Sour Chicken

Happy Wednesday! 
My first experience with homemade Chinese food was when I was a teen.  I was sick and a certain older female, maternal person in my life...whom I love dearly....who reads this blog, tried to make was nice enough to make me my favorite, Lemon Chicken. 
Now, something about this woman, let's call her Das Frauline, she is German after all...she is a  former model....here, take a look.

Isn't she beautiful!  Hopefully when she reads this, she will be so happy and honored to see her gorgeous self on here, she will forgive me for sharing the rest of this story....

Anyway....Das Frauline is a German who married a man that was a steak and potato fed boy that grew up on a farm in Nebraska.  She had no business experimenting in ANY ethnic cuisine, especially Chinese food, when she had made nothing but steak and donuts (oops, BUSTED) for the last 16 years.  But she did.  As I sat on the couch, sick as a dog, she handed me a bowl with a gray-ish hued chicken leg.  The gray-ish hue was somewhat masked by a tang-orange colored sauce.  When I asked her what it was, she said "Vell," in her German accent "I did not have any lemonade, so I found some frozen orange, banana, pineapple juice concentrate in the freezer and boiled the chicken in that"  She was so proud.....I was so sick.... let your imagination roll through all of your senses with that for a moment....

Moving on, I had tried a couple recipes here and there for Chinese food, and all of them giving me a less harsh memory of that sickly day.  I gave up.  Obviously, the only way I would get some good Chinese food was to call out for it.  One day, I was perusing my blogs, and found that Melanie from My Kitchen Cafe had a recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken.  I had bookmarked it, but didn't do much else.  A week later, on Tasty Kitchen, I saw that the exact same recipe, submitted by Melanie, was racing to the top of the "Most Popular" list, with high ratings and praise.  I took that as a sign and made it.  I am SOOOOO glad I did!  This recipe, my whole family has decided, is better than anything you would ever get in a restaurant!  Another one of those recipes that you can't imagine it from the ingredients, but, again....those flavor fairies do their thing!  It is a bit involved, so do it when you have a bit of time to dedicate to it, but I promise you won't be disappointed.  The only thing I did differently was while the chicken was on it's last 15 minutes in the oven, I chunked up some green pepper, onion, and pineapple.  I sauteed that trio on medium-high heat until slightly softened then added to the chicken once it was out of the oven. 
Enough...you HAVE to make this!!!

Ingredients:

Chicken:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup canola oil

Cut boneless chicken breasts into chunks. Season with salt and pepper. Dip chicken in cornstarch and then in egg. Fry in a little oil until brown but not cooked through. Place in a single layer in a baking dish. Mix sauce ingredients (below) together and pour over chicken.
Sauce:
¾ cup sugar
4 tablespoons ketchup
½ cup vinegar (either apple cider vinegar or regular white work great)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt

Bake at 325 degrees. Turn chicken every 15 minutes for one hour.

Optional, Siggy Spice Style
1/2 green pepper, chunked
1/2 yellow or white onion, chunked
1/2 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks, drained

Saute green pepper and onion in 1 TBSP vegetable oil over medium high heat until just softened.  You still want the veggies to have crunch to them.  Once they hit that stage, add in pineapple and continue cooking just until warm.  Add to chicken once it is out of the oven.  Serve over rice.

YUM-I-LICIOUS!!!!

This recipe has been linked up at:
Mommy's Kitchen