Recipe: Chicken with Ginger

Recipe Source: Dunlop, Fuchsia.  Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.  W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2006 pp. 130 - 1

As I think I've mentioned before, the first leg of the MLB Playoffs (the ALDS, for those of you who follow baseball) was challenging culinarily.  I don't think we ate a home-cooked meal the entire week, and the reason for that is simple.  I just didn't want to cook.  Well, that's not entirely accurate.  I wasn't willing to tear myself away from what was sometimes 12 hours of baseball to putter around in the kitchen where there is no baseball.  I decided that what I was going to do was to make dishes ahead of time that could be reheated and served with a minimum of fuss or effort on my part.  We would then eat said dishes, freeing ourselves from the tyranny of take-away. 

This was not one of those dishes.  This was, instead, a dish that I made to help me purge the freezer.  My freezer is small.  It holds essentially nothing.  You can probably get a pint of ice cream onto each shelf and then you're pretty much done.  This makes it very difficult to enact my clever plan of making tasty food ahead of time, and I have no idea at all what we're going to do when the Fearless Fetus graduates to being an actual baby.  Anyway, I needed to use up some boneless, skinless chicken thighs, so I made this.  The only other significant changes I made (the original called for chicken with the bone in) were to use duck stock instead of the Everyday Stock called for in the original and to use sesame oil instead of peanut oil for cooking, because I'm allergic to peanuts. 

Chicken with Ginger (serves 4; approx. $2.06/serving)

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size chunks

2 teaspoons soy sauce, plus extra for seasoning if need be

One 3" piece of fresh ginger, unpeeled and thinly sliced

1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine

2/3 cups duck stock or water

3 scallions, finely sliced

1 teaspoon hot pepper sesame oil

3 tablespoons sesame oil

Equipment:

• Wok or saute pan
• Bowl

1. Put the chicken into the bowl.  Add the soy sauce and mix well.
2. Heat the sesame oils in a wok over medium heat, or possibly a little lower - sesame oil has a much lower smoke point than peanut oil.
3. Add the ginger.  Stir fry until richly fragrant.  The thinner you got the slices of ginger, the quicker this step will be.  I'm just saying. 
4. Add the chicken.  Stir-fry until it is tinged golden. 
5. Splash the wine into the side of the wok.  Mix well.
6. Add the stock and bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat and simmer, seasoning with soy sauce to taste. 
8. Add the scallions when the liquid is significantly reduced.  Stir a few times. 
9. Add a little more hot pepper sesame oil if you like, then serve. 

Comments

[nora@ffr]

I know exactly what I'm making for dinner tomorrow!!

[lululu]

just give me a big bowl of rice, this is my kinda of meal! all time meal!

[Anna]

Maybe once FF becomes FB (Fearless Baby) you will have to break down and buy the dreaded chest freezer? Dangerous things those are...stuff gets send to the back and becomes part of the archaeological record...

[Juliana]

Oh! I don't think I had this dish before, but can almost taste it...love ginger. Absolutely yummie!