Aside from a good steak, chicken is one of my favourite proteins to cook with, because of its versatility, ease to cook, and the price is always right. I’ve always loved asian food, and asian sticky chicken is one of my go-to's at home when i'm feeling like a cheeky takeout inspired dish. So I figured why not adapt this to cooking with fire; because the sugar in the sauce tends to char quite quickly, an easier adaptation is to cook in a potjie pot to minimise the burning and max out the flavour.
This is an easy recipe that a novice can follow and allows for a range of dishes to be made.
What you’ll need:
- 500g of chicken (your choice: breast, thighs, bone in or out) with skin removed.
- 1 tot flour
- 1 tot butter or oil
- 1 onion (sliced or diced)
- 2 Garlic cloves
- ½ teaspoon grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon chilli flakes (optional)
- ½ cup chutney
- ½ cup tomato sauce
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ cup water
- 1 tot soy sauce
Fire prep:
You can start your fire before prepping your ingredients to make the most of your time. Ensure you have enough coals or wood available to start cooking. It’s always a better idea to have a little extra coal that you can constantly add a little more while cooking. You don’t need a super hot fire for this, just a few coals under your pot.
Cooking:
- Dice chicken into bite sized cubes or slices
- Dust lightly with flour, either sprinkle the flour over the chicken or toss the chicken and flour in a bowl together, they just need a light coat so don't stress too much about this, you don't want to cake them in flour.
- Heat butter or oil in your potjie
- Add chicken, garlic and onion to brown until the chicken has a nice golden colour
- Add chilli flakes and grated ginger
- Add the chutney, tomato sauce, mayonnaise, water and soy sauce one by one. Each time you add a sauce be sure to stir the chicken so they all get a bit of the new flavours added.
- Close the lid and let it simmer for 30-40 minutes
- Fire maintenance is crucial at this point, you only want a few coals below the potjie so its a medium heat, don’t add a load of fresh coals as this will likely dry out or burn the chicken.
- Check regularly by scraping the pot to ensure nothing is burning or sticking to the pot; if needed add small amounts of water and stir in.
- After about 30 minutes the chicken should be cooked through, if you have bone in chicken you should be able to easily scrape the meat off the bone.
- If you’ve added more liquid you may need to let it simmer a little longer with the lid off to reduce and thicken the sauce. My rule of thumb: if you can scrape the bottom of the pot and the liquid doesnt immediately cover the scraped area, the sauce is thick enough (it should take 1-2 seconds to cover the scraped area)
- If you’re feeling fancy you can garnish with some sesame seeds and chopped spring onion to make it look the part.
Now you’re ready to enjoy! So, how do you enjoy succulent sticky chicken? A few of my favourites:
- With rice - Keep it simple with just a side or rice of your choice
- Sticky chicken slider - On a fresh bun with lettuce and a slice of tomato with an optional slice of cheese.
- A slice of toast - spread with cream cheese ad top with your chicken
- With Rice noodles & Veg - I get lazy and just use microwave veg and noodles, but you could mix these straight into the potjie as well
- A wrap - with cream cheese, diced cucumber and shredded cheese (my favourite)
