Savory Chicken
I forgot to tell you about this yummy chicken dish we had for dinner earlier this week. It’s from a book called The Fine Art of Chinese Cooking, by Dr. Lee Su Jan, published by Gramercy Publishing Company, New York (no date of publication). We found it at a swapmeet some time ago. From the blurb on the back cover:
All messy, unhygienic, and odor-causing processes have been eliminated. There are menus for every occasion. Economy is stressed to make the pocketbook as happy as the stomach.
What “unhygienic and odor-causing processes” would have been eliminated, I wonder? What are they insinuating about Chinese cooking?
Jac substituted the sherry called for in the recipe with Chinese Hsao Shing wine, because we didn’t have sherry in the cupboard. Originally she planned to cook a separate vegetable dish to go with the chicken and the rice, but like me, she was tired after being at work all day, and so she made it a one pot meal with beans, carrots, courgettes, and I believe some extra big bits of onion, thrown in. I’m also a big fan of one pot meals because it makes less dishes to wash later.
Here’s what Jac’s version of the dish looked like. There was one serve’s worth left over, which I had with noodles the next day. That mix sauce is really delicious – a sweet sort of savory. Very drinkable, actually! Jac didn’t actually simmer the dish for 40 minutes either – I think it was closer to 30 minutes. The chicken was tender and had absorbed the mix sauce by then.
*Note, I have used the American spelling, as the book does. Normally I would spell the word as savoury, of course. Jac converted the measurements to metric as she cooked.