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Chicken recipe
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Lemon Chicken

Tender succulent but crispy chicken pieces in a delish lemon sauce
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 6

Ingredients

For the chicken:

  • 500 g (1lb 2oz) skinless chicken breast fillet
  • 1 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
  • 1 spring onion scallion very finely chopped
  • 1 1/2 tbsp finely chopped ginger
  • 1 clove garlic finely chopped
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 90 g (3/4 cup) cornflour (corn starch) or plain flour
  • Vegetable oil for deep frying

For the lemon sauce:

  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
  • 3 tbsp chicken stock or water
  • 1/2 tsp cornflour cornstarch or plain flour

Instructions

  • Cut the chicken into small slices and leave in a bowl.
  • Then add in the soy sauce, rice wine, spring onion, ginger and garlic and mix together well.
  • Marinate in the fridge for a couple of hour or preferably over night.
  • Remove the marinating chicken from the fridge and mix in the egg lightly.
  • Then carefully discard the excess egg and coat the chicken pieces with the cornflour.
  • It might be easier to coat the chicken pieces by transferring them to a plastic bag along with the cornflour and shaking them together.
  • Fill a wok approximately 1/4 full of oil for frying and heat until a piece of bread dropped in turn golden brown in 10 secs.
  • Add about a third of the chicken pieces all separated and fry them mixing constantly for up to 4 mins until they are golden brown. Remove them and drain.
  • Reheat the oil and fry the next third and then the final third of the chicken until all are golden brown and cooked.
  • Remove the oil from the work
  • To make the lemon sauce:
  • Reheat the wok over medium heat.
  • Combine all the lemon sauce ingredients together.
  • Transfer to the wok and stir constantly until the sauce has thickened.
  • Add in the chicken pieces and stir until coated with the sauce.
  • I like serving this with rice and stir fried greens.

Notes

Sometimes I serve the warm chicken pieces and warm lemon sauce separately so that guests can add the sauce themselves. Slightly adapted from the cook book The Food of China.