Tonga - Kumquat Chicken

Tonga is an island nation made up of 177 islands in the Pacific Ocean. I've never eaten a kumquat so I'm interested to find out what flavours it'll give to a chicken dish.


Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
8 kumquats
4 spring onions
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 cloves garlic
2 red chillis
1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger
1/2 teaspoon chinese five spice
1 teaspoon dried basil

Mix together the soy sauce, vinegar, water, cornflour and sugar until the sugar dissolves.

Add the garlic, chillis, ginger, five spice and basil.

Halve the kumquats and remove the seeds. Put them in the dish.

Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces and add to the dish. Stir well.

Cover and put in the oven for 40 minutes at 190C.

 Uncover and cook for a further 20-30 minutes.

 Slice the spring onions and use as a garnish.

This chicken dish had really powerful flavours and aromas. The sauce was thick and sweet while the chicken was tender and had taken on the dark brown colour of the soy sauce. JD ate the cooked kumquats but I found them too bitter to eat. The strong sauce was nicer mixed in with rice. The texture of the chicken was interesting, it had taken on a kind of grainy feel maybe from being cooked for so long in the soy sauce/vinegar sauce. It was great to try this dish as it had some different flavours than we're used to but I don't think we'll be having it again. :)