This Easy Chinese Chicken Curry comes together in under 30 minutes and tastes just like your favorite takeout. The tender chicken is coated in a rich curry sauce that uses easy to find ingredients. Ready in under 30 minutes, you can make this Chinese chicken curry as spicy or as mild as you like. Serve it over fried rice for a takeaway experience, or over noodles or plain rice. Delicious, family friendly and easy!
Place chicken a bowl (non-metallic) and sprinkle with the baking soda, stir gently to coat all of the chicken. Then cover and let the chicken marinate for 15 minutes.2 chicken breasts 1 ½ tablespoon baking soda
Use cold water to wash off the baking soda. Then rinse the chicken several times under running water. (See note 4)
Pat the chicken dry with kitchen paper and set to one side.
Next, make the sauce.
Add all the sauce ingredients into a large measuring cup/jug and stir well. Ensure the broth is cold to stop the cornstarch from clumping.1 ½ cups cold chicken broth 1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine 1 teaspoon soy sauce 1 ½ tablespoon curry powder ½ teaspoon sugar ½ teaspoon turmeric ¼ teaspoon salt pinch Chinese love spice 1 ½ tablespoon cornstarch
For the stir fry
Pour the oil into a heavy-based frying pan and place over high heat.1 ½ tablespoon oil
While the oil is heating up, peel and roughly chop the onion and slice the garlic.1 onion 1 clove garlic
Add the onion to the pan and stir fry for 2 minutes until softened and slightly colored.
Add the rinsed and dried chicken to the pan and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly—season with salt.½ teaspoon salt
Add the frozen peas and cook further 2 minutes.½ cup frozen peas
Add the sliced garlic.
Immediately after adding the garlic, give the prepared curry sauce a good stir, and then pour it into the pan. The sauce will bubble and start to thicken. Stir it well to coat your chicken and cook for 2 minutes.
Serve immediately.
Notes
Baking soda is also known as bicarb of soda, bicarbonate of soda, and sodium bicarbonate. Don't get it muddled with baking powder as that won't tenderize your meat.
Make sure the broth/stock is cold, this will ensure that the cornstarch/cornflour dissolves fully and doesn't clump together.
You can buy Chinese cooking wine in the Asian section of the grocery store, but if you can't find it, then you can use dry sherry.
Make sure you wash the chicken really well to remove any traces of baking soda. It is incredible at tenderizing meat but has a terrible taste, so you want to remove it.
The sauce thickens quickly to that real thick Chinese takeout style sauce. If you aren't a fan of the thick coating takeaway style sauces, then you can reduce the quantity of cornstarch to 1 tablespoon if you just want a thinner sauce.