If your anything like me when you’re at your favorite Chinese buffet your loading up your 3rd plate feeling great. You justify all the food because everything has vegetables so it can’t be that bad for you. Well it can. Between almost all the dishes containing some fried element or loaded with sugar and oil, MSG is also still present in many dishes. MSG is a food additive that is added to foods to enhance flavors and there is still much controversy of its relative safety. My viewpoint is that if you need to enhance your foods flavor unnaturally then you’re not making good food.
It is pretty easy to mix up an Asian style stir-fry with relatively few ingredients. Tonight I made a chicken stir-fry in under an hour including prep time. Here’s what you’ll need to make your own;
Ingredients:
- 1 lb of chicken
- 4 cups stir-fry vegetables (mushrooms, onions, bell peppers etc.)
- rice
Sauce/ Marinade:
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tbs scallions of green onion
- 1/2 tsp salt & pepper
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 3 tbs rice wine vinegar
- 1 tbs soy sauce
- 2 tbs dark brown sugar
Directions:
First we’ll make the marinade. Add cumin, turmeric, scallions, corn starch, salt, pepper and sugar to a bowl. Mix in rice wine vinegar and then add soy sauce. Cut chicken into about 1 inch pieces and place in marinade. With the chicken cut the marinade only needs to marinate for about a half hour.
First prepare your favorite white or brown rice. If you have a wok now is the time to use it. Cooking this meal is relatively quick with a wok but a regular non-stick pan will work. Heat about a tablespoon of peanut oil in the wok or pan on high heat. Remove chicken from marinade while keeping the sauce for later use. When the oil starts to smoke your ready to cook the chicken. Place chicken in pan and stir-fry for a about 5 minutes or until chicken is slightly underdone and remove from wok/pan. Add another tablespoon of oil to wok/pan and add vegetables.
Stir fry until you start to see browning. Add marinade to the vegetables along with the chicken and cover for about 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and serve on rice immediately. You can spice this up by adding red pepper flake for some heat or chopped peanuts for additional flavor. Let me know if you try this and if you change it up at all. Enjoy.
Single Ingredient Project 