Sweet and Sour Charsiu Chicken with Yellow Rice Recipe

Our favorite meat marinade is a combination of char siu sauce, soy sauce, and Rany’s Sweet and Sour sauce. But since I used up my last drop of Rany’s Sweet and Sour sauce, I tried to recreate a similar taste based from the label of ingredients on the bottle. I used the marinade sauce for chicken drumsticks, thighs, and pork butt. This pictorial is created using chicken drumsticks.

Total Prep and Cook time for meat and rice: 35-40 minutes
Servings: Enough for three people unless you eat like a pig.
Note: I can only fit 7 large drumsticks in the Cuisenart Air Fryer and I used the convention bake function.

Ingredients for meat marinade:

7 large chicken drumsticks (2.45 lb) or about 2.5 pounds of pork butt
2 Tbsp Lee Kum Kee Char siu sauce
2 Tbsp Euro Maggi seasoning sauce
3 Tbsp Heinz ketchup
1 tsp honey
1 Cutie mandarin
1 tsp minced garlic
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tsp vegetable oil

Ingredients for yellow rice:

3 cups uncooked jasmine rice
1.5 – 2 cups Swanson’s chicken broth
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp pure, unrefined, cold pressed coconut oil
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Cut 3 to 4 deep slits on the chicken drumsticks. If using porkbutt, cut the meat into 2-inch thick.

2. Rub the chicken drumsticks with black pepper and minced garlic. Peel the mandarin. Mix the marinade sauce.

3. Marinate the meat making sure to fill in the slits and under the chicken’s skin with the marinade.

4. Squeeze in the juice of the mandarin and mix the meat up well. Set meat aside to marinate for about 30 minutes. Skip to step 8 if you are not making the yellow rice.

5. While marinating the meat, make the yellow rice. Rinse the jasmine rice until the water is clear. Strain the water.

6. Pour in about 1.5 cup of chicken broth. Add the turmeric powder and white pepper. Add in salt now or use a salt shaker later. Use a spoon to stir the rice mixture well.

Note: Amount of liquid needed depends on how old your crop of rice is. New seasonal crop requires less amount of liquid to cook the rice.

7. Cook rice. When the rice cooker switches to “Done”, open up the lid and stir the rice up. Check to see if the rice is moist and cooked evenly. My old crop of rice required more liquid so I added 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Then pressed “Cook” again. When rice is done, transfer it into a container or plate. Don’t leave the rice in the cooker because the bottom will burn due to the seasonings.

8. Place the marinated chicken drumsticks into the Cuisenart AirFryer. Set to convention bake function and temperature at 375. Bake for 15 minutes.

9. Flip the drumsticks over, brush the meat with the remaining marinade. (I also change out the foil at the bottom to avoid the burning smell later.) Bake for another 10 minutes.

10. Transfer rice and chicken onto plate and serve. The yellow rice taste better when it’s warm. Enjoy!

I baked the chicken, cooked yellow rice, and served with mashed sweet potatoes and cauliflower seasoned with some nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger powder.

Oh yummy in my tummy!