This is one of my fave Thai-Malaysian stir fries: Three Flavoured Chicken, also known as Ayam Tiga Rasa. I also call it the better sweet and sour chicken stir fry. Spoiler alert, third flavour is spicy. This is easy and quick to prepare and the perfect dish for a busy weekday.

Originally and more popularly, this is cooked with fish. I’m using chicken instead, which is a freezer staple meat for me. This exact recipe can be easily adapted for fish, including giving the fish a turmeric marinade.

Three Flavoured Sauce

The main source of flavour comes in this sauce bowl of efficiency! It covers sweet, saltiness and sourness in a bowl, so all you need to do is add this to your stir fry – without faffing about with any additional salt or sugar.

Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce: This covers both sweet and spicy to the dish. “Mae Pranom” is my favourite brand of Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce, but any will do. You can also use regular chilli sauce or hot sauce such as Sriracha. If using that, do add an additional teaspoon of sugar to add sweetness and balance out the flavours.

Tomato Puree: This is our sour. You can also use tomato ketchup but I always prefer the richness of tomato paste. If using tomato ketchup, double the amount.

Oyster sauce: For saltiness and umami-ness.

Those are the three main ingredients and you can be done here, but I also added an extra teaspoon here of apple cider vinegar for the extra sharpness and tang.

Another optional ingredient is dried chilli paste. The 3 flavoured fish or chicken that you order at the restaurants will definitely include this ingredient. This adds spiciness, of course, but also a richness to the dish.

Vegetables

Capsicums are the standard vegetable usually cooked in sweet and sour chicken. I used half a green and red capsicum for colour, along with carrot. Broccoli and Cauliflower are my other favourite vegetables for this.