Have you found the terribly addicting website "Pinterest"? If not, I suggest one of two things: If you're a visual person and have some time every day to dawdle and browse around a really fun website, check it out. If you're a super busy person who already wastes too much time on-line, stay away! Seriously though, it is a great place to see all sorts of things from food and recipes, to ideas for decorating, funny pictures and sayings and so much more. I found the inspiration for this recipe there.
Yield: 4 servings
Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks
- 1 1/2 cups cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup peanut oil, plus 1 tsp
- 1/4 tsp dried red chili flakes
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp white sesame seeds, for garnish
- 1 scallion, green parts thinly sliced, for garnish
Marinade
- 1 TBSP soy sauce
- 1TBSP sherry
- 2 egg whites
Sauce
- 1/4 cup chicken stock
- 1 1/2 TBSP tomato paste
- 1 TBSP soy sauce
- 1 TBSP rice vinegar
- 1 tsp hoisin sauce
- 1 tsp chili paste
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp cornstarch
Method:
- Mix the marinade ingredients together and marinade chicken for 15 minutes.
- Mix the sauce ingredients together and set aside.
- Heat 1 cup of peanut oil in a hot wok over med-high heat.
- While oil heats, drain chicken from marinade and toss in cornstarch to coat. Shake excess cornstarch off and add chicken in batches to hot oil in wok.
- Cook chicken until well browned and cooked through, about 4 minutes.
- Remove chicken-drain on paper towels, and discard oil. Wipe wok out with paper towels.
- Add 1 tsp peanut oil, garlic and red pepper flakes to hot wok and stir fry for 30 seconds until fragrant but don't burn garlic.
- Add in sauce (stir first if cornstarch has settled) and stir fry for 1-2 minutes until thickening.
- Add chicken to wok and cook until well coated and warmed through.
- Garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.
We don't have any really good Chinese restaurant here (I know this probably isn't authentic Chinese but...) so I was happy to find a relatively easy recipe reminiscent of good Chinese restaurant food. Do you cook "Chinese" at home?
Printable recipe
Original Recipe