A fiery, glossy chicken stir-fry tossed with onions, capsicum and tomato in a sweet-sour-hot 'devilled' sauce. A bar-and-buffet favourite that bridges Sri Lankan and Chinese cooking.
Devilled dishes grew out of Sri Lanka's mid-twentieth-century 'hotel' and Chinese-restaurant scene in Colombo, where cooks adapted Cantonese stir-frying to the island's love of chilli. By the 1970s 'devilled chicken' was a fixture of wedding buffets and seaside bars, its name borrowed from the British colonial habit of calling fiercely spiced food 'devilled'.
Sticky, sweet-hot and savoury all at once, with charred onion edges and soft peppers giving way to juicy chicken. The vinegar-ketchup sauce hits like a tamarind-spiked sweet chilli, leaving a slow building heat.
High-heat stir-frying caramelises the sugars in ketchup and onion for the glossy lacquer, while the brief marinade and a flour-free sear keep the chicken juicy. Vinegar balances the sweetness and lifts the chilli.
Variations
Devilled pork, devilled prawns, devilled beef, devilled cuttlefish, vegetarian devilled paneer
On the Palate
Where Devilled Chicken Sri Lankan sits in the Sri Lankan flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
8 steps · 20 min
- 130 min
Cut chicken into bite-size pieces and marinate with soy sauce, pepper, chilli powder and a little salt for 30 minutes.
- 28 min
Heat oil in a wok and fry the chicken in batches until lightly browned, then set aside.
Watch outFry the chicken in batches so the wok stays screaming-hot — crowd it and it steams grey and weeps water instead of searing.
- 33 min
In the same wok, saute sliced onions, green chillies and curry leaves until fragrant.
- 42 min
Add chunks of capsicum and tomato and stir-fry over high heat for two minutes.
- 52 min
Stir in tomato ketchup, chilli sauce, soy sauce and a pinch of sugar to build the devilled sauce.
Watch outCook the ketchup down until it darkens and turns glossy, not raw and bright red — that caramelizing is what gives the devilled lacquer.
- 63 min
Return the chicken and toss until every piece is coated and glossy.
- 73 min
Splash in a little vinegar, check the seasoning and cook until the sauce clings.
Watch outSplash the vinegar down the hot wok edge and toss until the sauce clings and stops pooling — sauce sliding off the chicken means keep going.
- 81 min
Finish with spring onion and serve hot with rice or bread.
