Adventures in Cooking: Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry

[khaosworks]

A quick and easy stir-fry dish I tossed together for a pot-luck dinner tonight. You can freely substitute whatever kinds of vegetables or meat you want, or leave out whatever ingredients - just make sure the meat is cooked through. The real taste lies in the sauce. The mix of red and green provides nice color, though.



Chicken and Vegetable Stir-Fry
Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 green pepper, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 onion, halved, then sliced
4 spring onions, chopped
1 cup peanuts
2 tbsp rice wine or sherry
1 tbsp cornflour
Pepper

Sauce:
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
5 tbsp water

Instructions:

1. Mix ingredients for sauce together and put aside.

2. Heat 2 tbps oil in preheated wok. Add chicken pieces and stir-fry until tender, adding rice wine along the way to add flavor.

3. Add vegetables and stir-fry until vegetables start to soften. Stir in the sauce, making sure to coat the chicken and vegetables well with it. Continue to stir-fry for about a minute. Add pepper to taste. The mix should be savory enough with the sauce without the need to add salt.

4. Add cornflour and stir in well. Then add peanuts and continue to stir-fry for another minute or so, until the sauce begins to thicken - not too much, but make sure it's not too watery, either. Remove from heat and serve.

Variations: For a spicier version, try using chilli oil instead of sesame oil.

Comments

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Sounds nummy.

Just curious: Why do you add the cornflour (cornstarch) after the sauce has been cooking for a minute instead of adding it to the sauce before you add the sauce to the mixture?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

No particular reason... just an accident of history, really. When I first made this dish I didn't add cornflour to the sauce and discovered that it was too watery (the chicken and veg gave up more water than I anticipated), so I added it in after the fact. You may discover that the sauce is thick enough without the added "stickiness" of the cornflour, so you might also want to skip it.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Cornflour = cornstarch, yes?

I bet this would work great with fish.