I say ultimate because you’ll never get anything like these in your friendly Chinese! We adopted an American technique and marinaded the Chicken breasts cubes in Buttermilk. It soaks in really well and tenderises the meat. We also bought some Mono-Sodium Glutamate from the local Chinese supermarket, which added a real (not so authentic) Chinese style.

Ingredients for the Chicken Balls:-

2 Chicken breasts, cut into cubes
450ml of Buttermilk
1/8 of a teaspoon of Mono-Sodium Glutamate
Garlic Salt
Onion Salt

Batter:-

2 Eggs
Plain Flour (Gluten free for us)
Soda Water
Garlic Salt
Turmeric

Additional flour
1 Egg, battered for an Egg wash

Method:-

(1) Add add the marinade ingredients to a bowl and mix well.
(2) Stir in the Chicken cubes and cover.
(3) Allow to marinade in the fridge for 30 minutes.
(4) Mix the batter ingredients to form a reasonably sticky batter.
(5) Remove the Chicken in small batches and dredge in Flour.
(6) Dunk in the Egg wash and then Flour again.
(7) Preheat a deep fat fryer to 180c.
(8) dip eat piece of Chicken in the batter mix and fry in small batches making sure they don’t stick together.
(9) When they float and are browned, remove and drain on kitchen paper.

We used Sue’s Sweet and Sour sauce recipe and just served over boiled Rice with a sprinkling of sliced Spring Onions.