Aromatic Fried Chicken

Ooo, the kitchen is going to smell heavenly tonight as I'm cooking one of my favourite Ken Hom dishes.  If you like cooking oriental food then a lot of these ingredients will already be in your cupboard, which makes life simpler.  If you don't, then just pan fry the thighs, sprinkle with a few chilli flakes and splash with dark soy, some vinegar and a drizzle of honey at the end, it will still taste great, especially if you have some chopped spring onions to garnish.

Ingredients
900g chicken thighs, with bone in
3 tbsp peanut  or sunflower oil
For the marinade
2 teasp salt
1 teasp ground black pepper
6 garlic cloves
75ml fish sauce
75ml Shaoxing rice wine vinegar or use cider vinegar
2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and chopped
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp chopped shallots
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp Shoaxing rice wine or dry sherry
Plain flour, for dusting.

Method
Dry the chicken.  In a blender blitz the salt, pepper, garlic, fish sauce, vinegar, chillies, sugar, lime shallots, soy sauce and rice wine. Rub this mixture all over the chicken and allow to marinate for 1 hour at room temperature.  Drain off any excess marinade. Dust the chicken with flour and shake off any excess. Heat a wok or large frying pan over a high heat until it is very hot. Add the oil and when it is very hot turn the heat down to low. Add the chicken skin side down and slowly brown over a moderate heat for 10 minutes on each side r until cooked through. Remove from the wok, drain on kitchen paper, then transfer to a serving dish and tuck in. I like to serve it with steamed rice and bok choy.