Quick-Cooked Chicken with Vegetables
This is one of those recipes where the time is in the prep work you do, not in the cooking.
Having everything prepared and ready to go is the key success for this recipe because there isn’t enough time between steps to prep.
- 1 egg white
- 50 g cornstarch
- 225 g chicken breasts cut in to strips
- 75 ml peanut oil
- 200 g bamboo shoots cut into strips
- 50 g bean sprouts washed and drained
- 1 green pepper cut in to strips
- 3 spring onions sliced
- 1 slice ginger root minced fine
- 1 clove garlic Peeled and minced fine
- 15 ml rice wine or substitute dry sherry
- Put a cooling rack over a baking tray (the one with the lip) for draining the chicken
- Wash the bean sprouts in a colander and leave to self drain
- Slice the spring onions
- Slice the bamboo shoots, dispose of the water if they were canned
- Cut the green pepper in to strips
- Mince the ginger
- Mince the garlic
- Cut the chicken in to strips
- Beat the egg white and cornflour together in a flat bottomed dish large enough to hold a chicken strip
- Dip each of the chicken strips in to the cornflour/egg mixture
- Place your wok over a medium heat
- Heat the oil ready for frying
- In small batches, fry the chicken strips in the oil until they are just cooked
- Drain each batch of chicken strips on the cooling rack
- Add the bamboo shoots to the hot oil in the wok
- Add the bean sprouts to the wok
- Add the green pepper to the wok
- Add the spring onions to the wok
- Add the ginger to the wok
- Add the garlic to the wok
- Stir fry the vegetables for about 3 minutes
- Add the rice wine (or dry sherry) to the wok
- Return the drained chicken to the wok
- Stir everything together until heated thoroughly
By prepping the chicken after you have done all the vegetables you only end up using one knife and cutting board, or have to wash up between steps.
Because all of the vegetables get cooked at the same time you don't need to maintain separate measuring bowls for each.
All the vegetables go in to one bowl, chicken goes straight from the cutting board to being dipped, back to the cutting board, and then straight in to the hot oil in the wok. Cutting board and knife go straight to the kitchen sink for wash up.
Cooking the chicken in small batches (usually I do a third at a time) prevents the oil temperature from dropping off too suddenly. You don't end up with cornstarch coming off of the chicken due to the oil temperature dropping off and you actually end up frying the chicken, not just cooking it. Let the oil warm back up between each batch.
Adding a piece of tinfoil on the baking tray means one less item to wash up and no oily residue on your baking tray. The baking tray catches any accidents than the tinfoil alone. The tinfoil catches any oil that might end up on the baking tray. I'd consider one less bulky dish to wash oil off of a bonus.