For the chicken

• Three chicken thighs
• About 100g cornflour plus two tbsp
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tbsp panko breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tbsp rice wine
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• Plenty of white pepper
• 2 tsp Chinese five spice
• 1 tsp MSG
• Salt

For the lemon sauce

• Two lemons
• A two inch knob of ginger, peeled and cut into very fine julienne
• A tbsp of cornflour
• 3 tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp caster sugar

Start by marinading the chicken thighs. Peel the skin off them and cut the bones out, then cut the chicken into smallish bitesize pieces. Place in a bowl with the two tbsp of cornflour (we’ll need the rest later), the egg, the bicarb, the rice wine, the soy sauce, the fish sauce, the white pepper, the five spice, the MSG and a bit of salt – don’t overdo it as the soy and fish sauce are both already a bit salty. Leave for fifteen minutes or so as you prepare your dredge and sauce.

For the dredge, combine the 100g cornflour, the plain flour, the panko, more white pepper and more salt. Mix well and set to one side in one of the big Tupperware containers. For the sauce, zest the lemons into a bowl, then add the juice of the lemons, the ginger, the vinegar, the sugar and some salt. Mix and taste, then adjust the sweet/salt/sour balance by adding sugar, salt or vinegar. Add about a quarter of the volume of the sauce in water – probably about 1.5 tbsp.

To cook, heat a wok half full of oil to about 180c. A chopstick should fizz when put in. Put the marinaded chicken through the dredge mix, pushing it and tossing it to cover each piece very well. Fry for 4-5 minutes in three batches until golden brown and put aside, sprinkling with a tiny bit more salt. Bring back up to around 200c and fry again, in two batches, for another thirty seconds or so. This makes the chicken stay crispy later on.

Working quite quickly now, so the chicken doesn’t lose too much heat, decant the hot oil, wipe out the pan and return to a medium-high heat until smoking a bit. Add the cornflour to the sauce, mix well, and add to the pan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. It should thicken. If it’s too thick, add a little water. If it’s not thick enough, combine a little more cornflour with a tsp of water to make a slurry and drizzle in (don’t add the cornflour in directly, it’ll just become clumpy) – you want a glaze consistency, not sludge or a thin sauce.

Toss the fried chicken pieces through the lemon and ginger sauce and serve with fried rice.