Lee's Blog

Garlic Chicken

To serve 3 hungry or 4 not so hungry - quantities easily increased to serve more ***

Ingredients (Some Corrections)

500g chicken thigh, diced, visible fat and yukiness removed where possible **
2 - 3 cups veg, sliced for stir fry *
peanut oil for frying (ok to use other oil if you don't have peanut oil)
2 Tablespoons dry sherry ****
5 garlic cloves finally chopped (yes five, don't skimp)
1/3 cup vegetable or chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil *****
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1.5 teaspoons cornflour

white rice to serve. basmati is excellent. Optional - adding cashews right at the end is fantastic.

Method

1. Put a little peanut oil into the pan. Heat wok, when nice and hot, cook the thigh in two batches. Don't stir it too much, let the fat melt etc. Two minutes on each side should be fine, then set aside in a bowl. Let the pan reheat before adding next batch.

2. Add all the chicken back into work, and the garlic. Stir fry for no more than a minute. Don't let the garlic burn. Remove from pan back into a bowl.

3. Stir fry the vegies for 2-3 mintues or as required, in same pan you were using. Remove into a bowl (can add to chicken if desired).

4. Make the sauce: Start with a thickening agent - blend the cornflour into a tablespoon of the stock until smooth (you can add a little extra stock if you need). Then, stir in the rest of the stock, soy sauce, sherry, and sesame oil.

5. Put the sauce into the wok, and bring to boil. Add some salt and pepper if you desire. You want this sauce to really thicken so it will coat the other ingredients, so let it boil a little longer and give it a bit of a stir. When you are happy with it ****** throw the veg and chicken back in and in about two mins you're ready to serve. Note - if adding cashews add them now.

Then, enjoy!

Footnotes

* I always use carrot cut on the diagonal, onion, and vary the other ingredients from a selection like capsicum, snowpeas, tinned champignon mushrooms or normal mushrooms, spring onions etc

** Look, you can use breast, but it's not going to be as great. If you do, make sure you don't cook it for too long - esp as it is going to cook, rest, and then go back in the pan - it needs much less cooking than you think. Now in terms of the visible fat you won't be able to remove from the thigh, a lot of that is going to melt off and add flavour when browned in the high heat of the pan (another reason to brown the chicken in batches)

*** If you increase qty, make sure that you brown the chicken thigh in extra batches

**** If you don't have sherry on hand it's worth buying a bottle. IT's about $6 for 750ml and keeps for ever and you can use instead of mirin in most asian dishes

***** Again worth buying if you don't have, but goes rancid easily so store in fridge

****** If you need to thicken your sauce further, you can make another slurry from a little more cornflour and hot water, stir that in, and boil it further. If you need to make more sauce or thin out, you can add a little more stock or hot water, and a splash more sherry and soy.

And by the way

This is a great base idea, with the garlic and the sauce. I have used it for a heavy veg little chicken low carb no rice type deal, and you could use it for garlic prawns, fish, etc (just don't cook those as much in step 1). Experiment ez vouz!