On tonight's menu was parmesan pork roast (weird sounding and equally weird tasting) and proscuitto-wrapped grilled asparagus topped with toasted bread crumbs, garlic, and lemon. They were both recipes I've had hanging around my "to-try" pile of recipes; the horde, at one point torn fresh from magazines, now inhabits an entire drawer in my kitchen (a behavior I lovingly adopted from my mother). If the recipe passes with good scores from the judges (being myself and Matt), it goes in my cookbook (basically a three-ring notebook with sticky scrapbooking pages). If it sucks, it gets thrown in the trash. It's a hard knock life for recipes out there.
I'm on a mission this summer to try every recipe in that drawer, and tonight I outdid myself with two recipes. The result for both was decidedly "meh." It was kind of like eating a gussied-up TV dinner. Think about it: pork roast, rice, and asparagus. My reaction was pretty much the same: "It does the job." And it did, because I'm full (but have been whining for about 15 minutes now about going out and getting ice cream or Milk Duds, my favorite candy--followed closely by Swedish Fish). Anyway, it was a kitchen fail. I won't even bother posting pictures. Ah well, you don't learn unless you try, right? Right.
The good news is that one of the meals on this week's menu is influenced by more Eastern flavors, and for someone who's currently obsessed with all things Asian foods, that's very good news. I've got a honey sesame chicken recipe queued up, paired with stir-fried broccoli with chili-garlic sauce. NOM.
This obsession has lasted about three weeks now. In fact, the very last meal we ate in our old apartment back in Nebraska was Kung Pao Chicken, dutifully torn out of a Clean Eating magazine. It was AMAZING, and it passed the taste test and now sits proudly at the top of my cookbook's "main dishes" section. The amazing thing is that I didn't even alter the recipe very much at all. So, loyal readers, 99.9% of the credit for this recipe goes to the friendly folks down at Clean Eating magazine.
Kung Pao Chicken
Time from pantry to plate: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1-2 large boneless, skinless chicken breast(s), cut up into chunks (about 1 in.)
- 1/4 c. raw unsalted peanuts (You'll get all the sodium you need from the soy sauce, so try extra hard to find the raw unsalted or roasted unsalted! I used roasted unsalted.)
- 2-3 green onions, thinly sliced (plus extra if you want to be fancy and garnish your dish when it's done)
- 2 tsp. rice vinegar (a must for Asian cooking!)
- 2 c. cooked brown (or white) rice
- 1 T. canola oil (the original recipe called for olive oil, but I think it's almost a sin to put extra virgin olive oil in an Asian dish because it has such a distinct flavor that your mouth wants to associate with Mediterranean dishes. So use canola oil instead; it has no flavor and it won't weird out your taste buds.)
- 1 tsp. red pepper flakes (the original recipe called for only 1/4 tsp, but hey, we're Heidricks, and if we're not sweating profusely and experiencing some degree of pain by the end of the meal, it's just not hot enough)
- 2 T. low-sodium soy sauce
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. fresh grated ginger or about 1/2 tsp. powdered ginger
- As much hot chili sauce as you want/can stand without having a medical emergency
Steps
- In a wok or large pan, heat your oil on medium-high heat. Add in the red pepper flakes, chicken and peanuts and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. When you add red pepper flakes to hot oil, you'll get this amazing infusion of heat in the dish. It makes me happy.
- Into the pan, stir in 1/4 c. water, the soy sauce, the garlic, ginger, onions, vinegar, and chili sauce. Bring this concoction to a simmer and cook for about 3 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
- Throw in your rice and stir to combine or serve the chicken mixture over the rice. Garnish with green onions and more chili sauce, if desired.
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| Hiiiii-yah! This Kung Pao Chicken recipe will slap you in the mouth with all of its heat. |
Because I'm very interested to learn more about Asian cuisine, I picked up a book that I'd bought on clearance some time ago at the University Bookstore called "Try This: Traveling the Globe Without Leaving the Table" by Danyelle Freeman. You can see why I was interested! In it, the author explores 14 different world cuisines: their ingredients, methods of cooking, traditions, and even table manners. I flipped it open to the section about Chinese cuisine, and learned that there are four primary types of Chinese cuisine: Cantonese, Beijing, Szechuan, and Shanghai. Each of them has their own unique flavors and ingredients. For example, the stir-fried broccoli with chili garlic sauce I'm going to make later this week is probably most closely associated with Cantonese or Szechuan cooking.
I doubt that I'll ever reach the degree of skill to create truly authentic-tasting Asian dishes, but hey, like I said before...you'll never learn unless you try! And with a seeming lack of Asian restaurants and Asian food stores around Springfield, I'll have to learn how to make this stuff in order to feed my obsession (literally).
(That was a head's up to expect a few more kitchen fails from me in the very near future regarding Asian cuisine.)
Until next time!
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