Pictorial: Chicken Stir-fried with Broccoli

[hzrt8w]

Pictorial Recipe

Chicken Stir-fried with Broccoli (芥蘭抄雞片)

This is a reader's request. I was asked to illustrate how to make the chicken stir-fries with broccoli in a brown sauce similar to what they serve in Chinese restaurants. The "brown" sauce is typically made by mixing superior broth (chicken or pork) with some oyster sauce, dark soy sauce and a little bit of sugar.

This is a very basic Chinese cooking recipe. I used chicken and Chinese broccoli for this illustration. You may use pork, beef or other types of meat and American broccoli, bok choy, mustard green and other types of vegetables. The cooking steps are just the same.

Serving Suggestion: 2 - 3

Preparations:

Main ingredients (upper right, clockwise):

- 3 boneless chicken breasts, about 1 1/2 lb

- Garlic, use 4-5 cloves

- Ginger, use 1-inch in length

- 1/2 can of bamboo shoots

- 1 can of straw mushrooms

- 1 small egg for marination

- 1 to 1 1/2 lb of Chinese broccoli

Notes:

- The bamboo shoots and straw mushrooms are for complementary purposes. You may use dried black mushrooms, baby corns, canned water chestnuts, carrots, green peas or other vegetables. Or you may skip them.

- You may use "dark meat" (chicken thigh or drumsticks), bone-in or bonless, to make this dish. You may also use other meats in making this dish.

Take the chicken breasts: trim fat, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices.

To marinate the chicken slices: Add chicken meat into a mixing bowl. Add:

- 1/2 tsp of salt (or to taste)

- 1 tsp of ground white pepper

- Break the egg and add the egg white only

- 1 to 2 tsp of oyster sauce (since this dish is oyster sauce based)

- 1 to 2 tsp of corn starch or potato starch

Mix well. Set aside for about 30 minutes before cooking.

Peel, trim end and mince 4 to 5 cloves of garlic. Peel and grate 1-inch of ginger.

Wash and drain the broccoli well. Cut diagonally along the stem.

If the bamboo shoots are of whole pieces, cut them into slices. Drain all the water from the can.

Cooking Instructions:

Use a pan/wok, set stove at high. Add 3 tblsp of cooking oil. Wait until oil gets hot.

Add the marinated chicken. Cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side. Stir well.

If you have a second pan, you can cook the vegetables simultaneously to save some time. Or else you need to cook them sequentially.

Add 3 tblsp of cooking oil. Wait until oil gets hot. Add 1/2 tsp of salt. Add the Chinese broccoli.

Back on the first pan: Remove the chicken when it is still slightly undercooked.

On the second pan: Kill the fire once the broccoli turns soft. It takes about 5 minutes. Don't overcook the broccoli. Drain off any extra liquid from the pan.

Back on the first pan: Continue with the stove setting at high. Add 2-3 tblsp of cooking oil. Wait until oil gets smoking hot.

Add minced garlic and grated ginger. Add 1/4 tsp of salt (or to taste). Stir well. Sautee for 20 seconds. Then dash in 2-3 tsp of ShaoHsing cooking wine.

If you use garlic alone, it is tasty all right. But the addition of ginger will "kick it up a notch" - to quote Emeril.

Add 1/2 cup of chicken broth (or more if you want it saucey). Bring the mixture to a boil.

Add the bamboo slices and straw mushrooms.

Add 2-3 tsp of oyster sauce, 1-2 tsp of sugar, and 1 tsp (or more) of dark soy sauce - depends on how "dark" you want the sauce. If you want the sauce light in color, skip the dark soy sauce.

Bring the mixture to a boil. Add corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce to the right consistency. Add the corn starch slurry a little bit at a time. Keep stirring. Stop when the sauce is thicken to your liking.

Return the cooked chicken slices to the pan.

Stir-well. Continue to cook for just about a minute. Finished.

Plating:

Use an oversized plate: In the center, lay 4 to 5 chicken slices. Lay 5 to 6 bamboo slices at the bottom, and a few straw mushrooms in between. 2 to 3 pieces of Chinese broccoli along the side. Scoop the sauce into a squeegee bottle (or use oyster sauce) and scribble it onto the rest of the canvas area. Done. Serve this under candle light with a glass of wine. Have a great time!

What? Oh, oh... you want Chinese style of plating? Okay... okay...

Take a big serving plate: lay on the Chinese broccoli. Try to make it into a circle with a "hollow" area in the center. Then scoop in the chicken slices stir-fried with bamboo shoots and straw mushrooms in the center.

Picture of the finished dish.

Edited October 30, 2006 by hzrt8w (log)

[eje]

[...]

Use an oversized plate:  In the center, lay 4 to 5 chicken slices.  Lay 5 to 6 bamboo slices at the bottom, and a few straw mushrooms in between.  2 to 3 pieces of Chinese broccoli along the side.  Scoop the sauce into a squeegee bottle (or use oyster sauce) and scribble it onto the rest of the canvas area.  Done.  Serve this under candle light with a glass of wine.  Have a great time!

What?  Oh, oh... you want Chinese style of plating?  Okay... okay...

[...]

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[Dejah]

[...]

Use an oversized plate:  In the center, lay 4 to 5 chicken slices.  Lay 5 to 6 bamboo slices at the bottom, and a few straw mushrooms in between.  2 to 3 pieces of Chinese broccoli along the side.  Scoop the sauce into a squeegee bottle (or use oyster sauce) and scribble it onto the rest of the canvas area.  Done.  Serve this under candle light with a glass of wine.  Have a great time![...]

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Not only is he a "specialist", now he wants to be known as a comedian too!

[Kent Wang]

I like your plating effort. Definitely not something we see much of in traditional Chinese cooking.

[JasonZ]

You forgot to add "if a restauranteur, charge double for the oblong plate, small portion, squiggled sauce version" ...

Very nicely done, Ah Leung ... and very creative as well as traditional!

[jo-mel]

ROTFLMAOWTIMEWPIMP! You even had the proper dish! Very funny!

Next time, are you going to go 'vertical'?

BTW - Good basic dish with lots of leeway. Looks good!

[mizducky]

Y'know, Ah Leung, you may have done the "haute cuisine" plating for laughs, but it actually came out looking pretty danged good.

But I'd still take the (much more generous) Chinese style plating any day.

(signed, she who has never quite got into this whole fashion of wasting perfectly good sauce on plate-decoration squiggles--after all, it's not the plate itself you're going to be eating... unless you're going to be rude and lick the plate clean ... )

[Tepee]

LOL, Ah Leung Gaw, you're getting more and more yau muk compared to your early no-nonsense days! Your demos are yummy as ever.

[jo-mel]

Xiao hzrt -- As Mizducky suggests --- you might have some high class talent there! Are your next dishes going to offer serving choices?

[gus_tatory]

hzrt8w--

as always, your pictorial is awesome, and it helps me decipher what some of those jars (with no Roman letters on them) actually *are* in my Chinatown. thanks!

i am wondering, since you kind of got onto the Chinese greens a little bit here, if it would be possible maybe to do a side-by-side picture comparison of some of the most widely available Chinese greens? i can recognize Napa cabbage (bok choy?) and Chinese broccoli (gai lan?), but after that i'm hopelessly lost...

would anyone second that request? Chinatown in Montreal is on my way home from work nightly, and if you did me that favour, hzrt8w, i would be able to eat tasty nutritious greens all winter, as well as know what they are called!

[ash123]

hzrt8w--

as always, your pictorial is awesome, and it helps me decipher what some of those jars (with no Roman letters on them) actually *are* in my Chinatown. thanks! 

i am wondering, since you kind of got onto the Chinese greens a little bit here, if it would be possible maybe to do a side-by-side picture comparison of some of the most widely available Chinese greens? i can recognize Napa cabbage (bok choy?) and Chinese broccoli (gai lan?), but after that i'm hopelessly lost... 

would anyone second that request? Chinatown in Montreal is on my way home from work nightly, and if you did me that favour, hzrt8w, i would be able to eat tasty nutritious greens all winter, as well as know what they are called!   

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Gus, I second that. I love Chinese greens and I always wanted to know how to identify them

hzrt8w, great presentation!

[hzrt8w]

[...]

would anyone second that request? Chinatown in Montreal is on my way home from work nightly, and if you did me that favour, hzrt8w, i would be able to eat tasty nutritious greens all winter, as well as know what they are called!    

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Sounds like there is some interest to see a:

Ah Leung's Pictorial Guide to Chinese Vegetables

?

Edited October 31, 2006 by hzrt8w (log)

[eje]

Sounds like there is some interest to see a:

Ah Leung's Pictorial Guide to Chinese Vegetables

? 

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Absolutely!

I would love to see that.

[mizducky]

Sounds like there is some interest to see a:

Ah Leung's Pictorial Guide to Chinese Vegetables

? 

←

Absolutely!

I would love to see that.

←

So would I, most definitely!

[hzrt8w]

Xiao hzrt -- As Mizducky suggests --- you might have some high class talent there! Are your next dishes going to offer serving choices?

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I will do whatever to suggest the "high class" restaurant operators that they can charge extra without spending extra.

[hzrt8w]

Supplemental:

Here is another round. The basic recipes are the same. This time I used American broccoli and some left-over rotisserie chicken (chopped in big chunks).

Stir-fry the broccoli separately with only a little bit of salt.

Plate the broccoli so all the pieces radiate outwards.

Scoop the stir-fried chicken and bamboo shoots and straw mushrooms and lay in the center.

[canucklehead]

Dude - that is looking like Banquet Quality!

[liv4fud]

Ah Leung,

One quick question: the brocolli that was cooked will stand out and would not *absorb* the flavor of the dish...

I guess I am spoilt by having indian food where an entire dish tastes the same (or similar). In this one -- brocolli - seems more of a garnish.

Am I mistaken in my observation?

[hzrt8w]

One quick question: the brocolli that was cooked will stand out and would not *absorb* the flavor of the dish...

I guess I am spoilt by having indian food where an entire dish tastes the same (or similar).  In this one -- brocolli - seems more of a garnish.

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Indian vegetable cooking is very different from Chinese vegetable cooking. Most of the Indian vegetable dishes that I have tried, vegetables are cooked until very soft and the dominating spices are mixed in. Vegetables, spices, sauces all mixed as one.

In Chinese stir-fry cooking, we cook the meat end vegetables separately and in the end combine the two along with the sauce. Vegetables just turned "cooked", which is the point where they loose their "grassy" taste. But usually not soft. Except vegetables like egg plants and melons.