muntedkowhai

Last night, it was my mum's menu night and she wanted to make Black bean braised chicken. Let me say that all the recipes that we pick for our Wednesday dinners are short, easy and new. Perfect for a midweek perk up in the menu section!

The black bean braised chicken in it's own thick sauce.

With a side of stir fry Soy bean sprouts and spring onions.

If you have never had soy bean sprouts before, you should definitely try it. It has a nutty flavor in the sprout and you can find them pre packaged in most asian supermarkets.

The recipe:

6 garlic cloves, lightly smashed, peeled and mashed.

5 tablespoons fermented black beans, washed several times to remove salt, drain well.

Sauce:

3 tablespoons oyster sauce

2 tsp sugar

salt to taste

2 tbspn dark soy sauce

1 whole chicken cut into bite-size pieces.

3 1/2 to 4 tbspn water chestnut powder or flour

cooking oil

3 tbsp chinese white rice wine or gin

1 cup chicken stock

sprigs of coriander for garnish

Method:

Make a paste of the mashed garlic and black beans, put aside.

Mix sauce, put aside.

Coat the chicken pieces with the flour or water chestnut powder.

I would use a frying pan to heat about 1/2 inch of oil. If you use a wok, you'd end up using more oil than you need. Deep fry the chicken pieces until lightly golden.

Remove chicken, drain on a paper towel and set aside.

If at the end of frying, the oil is dirty with clumps of flour, drain that out of the pan, wipe dry with paper towels.

Place remaining 3 tbsp oil in the pan over high heat and when a wisp of white smoke appears, add the garlic, black bean paste. Break up with spatula. When garlic turns light brown, add chicken pieces and mix well.

Drizzle with the white wine into pan from edges, stir and mix well.

Stir the sauce, pour into pan , mix until chicken is well coated. Turn off heat.

Transfer chicken to a pot. Pour 3/4 cup chicken stock into pan to help collect juices and sauce, then pour into pot over chicken. Cover pot and cook over low heat until chicken is tender, 30 to 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. If sauce becomes too thick, add a bit more stock, 1 to 2 tbsp at a time.

Turn off heat, remove chicken and sauce from pot and transfer to a heated dish. Garnish with coriander and serve with cooked rice.

Also, knitting wise, I'm getting the hang of it! It is no longer the fiddly and frustrating hobby that it once was! This jumper called for cables but after attempting , I decided to make it just a plain jumper because I'm only a beginner at this! I'll leave the fancy patterns to a few projects later.