Vietnamese Chicken Curry (Cà Ri Gà)

“Curry” is a generic word typically used to describe a tasty stew of meat and vegetable. But in fact, it is a blend of spices — cumin, coriander, turmeric, clove and cinnamon being the most common. There are as many varieties of curry as there are cuisines. Most people are familiar with Indian and Thai curries, and maybe can tell the difference between the two. Thai curries come in “shades of hot”, as I call it, but the heat factor is not necessarily accurate as it also depends a great deal on the labels. Red, yellow, green curries all refer to the type of pepper that is used in the mixture. Indian curries tend to be the most prolific in term of varieties,  each region claiming its own special blend, with madras and masala being the most well-known.  Panang-style curry is also gaining popularity in the US as I have seen it listed in a few restaurants. It is typically beef (or goat in Malaysia), and is quite hot. I can still remember sitting in a small neighborhood restaurant in Panang, eating a bowl of this tasty stew (more water, please), in between hiccups (I get them when the food is really spicy hot). By the way, water does not really work. You need to drink something hot (like hot tea) to remove the pepper oils.

Now that I’m older and a little less adventurous, I have developed a few favorites that I’ll go back to time and again. I still like Grandma’s Vietnamese Chicken Curry the best, although I still can’t quite duplicate it exactly the same. In addition to sweet potato, she used this small dense root vegetable (cassava? taro?) that adds a nice starchy texture to the stew. Regardless, the recipe below is quite tasty, and is pretty easy to make. Traditional recipe calls for chicken thighs, but you can use chicken breast to cut back on the calories. Because it simmers in the sauce for a while, the breast does not come out dry and chewy. In Vietnam, we eat this dish with sliced warm fluffy french bread. Try that or serve with steamed rice.

A note on the curry blend:  We used to be able to get the 3 Golden Bells label, but I haven’t been able to find it in a while. The closest one I could find is the 4 Elephant brand. Whole Foods has several blends as well — I’m not as fond of them as the Asian ones. You can experiment with different types until you find one that you like. But stick with the yellow curry powder. And if you get overwhelmed by an Asian market, any madras curry will do.

This recipe makes a LOT of chicken curry — but we usually make a big batch and freeze for lunches. (I still love my Food Saver!) Cut the recipe by half for 4 servings.

3 pounds skinned chicken (bone-in for added flavor)
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-1/2 inch cubes
2 large carrots, sliced diagonally (about an inch thick)
2 small onions, cut into wedges
1/2 cup or so curry powder
3 shallots, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 lemongrass stalks (mostly white and pale green parts), cut into 3″ lengths and bruised
2″ piece of ginger, bruised, peeled and sliced thickly
4 cups of chicken stock (or Trader Joe’s sweet potato soup)
1 can of coconut milk
4 tbs of fish sauce (more or less to taste)
salt to taste
cilantro for garnish

Put the curry powder on a flat plate, and coat the chicken evenly on both sides. Use your fingertips to “massage” the curry powder into the chicken. Put aside for 30 minutes.

In a big skillet, add a tablespoon olive oil over medium high heat. Add onions, shallots, garlic and stir until fragrant — 10 seconds or so. Add the chicken and brown both sides. Add lemongrass and ginger. Pour on top the chicken stock (or sweet potato soup), and bring to a slow boil. Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the garnish), cover and simmer for a half hour. Discard lemongrass stalks before serving.

Ingredients I usually leave out are 3 tablespoons of sugar and 3 tablespoons of red chile flakes. I figure it’s already hot and sweet enough, but add them to your taste.

“Leeky” Noodles (Miến Xào)

This is a ridiculously simple and easy “comfort” food recipe; without all the calories. In Vietnamese, “miến xào” literally translates to “mung bean noodles, sautéed”. You can choose your own ingredients for this recipe — except for the “miến”, or mung bean noodles, of course. Easy combinations include onions and mushrooms, wood ear (or “wood lichen”) and chicken livers/gizzards, greens (mustard, kale, spinach), or whatever. We had a bunch of leeks in the fridge, so I threw this combo together. It was delicious! Michelle decided to name it “Leeky Noodles” coz she liked it so much.

One note on the Chinese sweet sausage — there are as many varieties of these as there are combinations to this recipe. I lucked out and found a “lean” version of these at our local Ranch 99 Supermarket. This variety was both flavorful and lean — only 85 calories each. If you were a true Chinese sweet sausage believer, you will have a favorite brand. We tried this brand and like it a lot. However, just to reiterate again,you can use any meat in this recipe — chicken, pork, beef. Or go vegetarian and use fried tofu.

Prep time, about 15 minutes. Cook time, about 15 minutes.

2 oz. mung bean noodles (also called “translucent” or “silver” noodles), soaked in warm water until “soft”, drained and cut into 3″ length
1 small onion, julienned
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 small leeks, white and pale green segment only, thinly sliced
½ cup shitake mushrooms, sliced
½ brown mushrooms, sliced
½ cup wood ear, sliced
4 Chinese sausage, sliced diagonally

In big skillet, sautée onions for about 2 minutes, or until *just* soft. Add sliced leeks and sautée leeks for about 10 minutes (or until soft). Add garlic, mushrooms, wood ear, and Chinese sweet sausage. Sautée for about 2 minutes, and add the drained mung bean noodles. Sautée for about another minute or so (until the noodle is soft, but not mushy).

Makes 2 servings.

Juniper’s (modified) Strawberry Summer Cake

Another recipe from Juniper!

strawberry summer cake (from Smitten Kitchen)

Juniper’s notes: I cooked mine for a long time, possibly over an hour.
I used the rye flour.  I had too many strawberries and had to layer
some in a 9″ pan.

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pie plate
1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour (can swap 3/4 cup or 94 grams
all-purpose flour with 3/4 cup or 75 grams of barley flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup (200 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 pound (450 grams) strawberries, hulled and halved

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch pie pan or 9-inch deep-dish pie pan (what I used). I did not test this with a standard 9-inch pie plate but looking at the margin of space leftover in my deep-dish pan after baking the cake, I suspect you’d be safe. This cake would also work in a 9- or 10-inch springform or cake pan. The 10-inch would make a thinner cake than pictured.

Whisk flour or flours, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth.

Pour into prepared pie plate. Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer (though I had to overlap a few to get them all in). Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.

Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes. (Gooey strawberries on the tester are a given.) Let cool in pan on a rack. Cut into wedges. Serve with lightly whipped cream.

Juniper’s Radish Butter

My friend Juniper had an abundance of radishes growing in her garden. What can you do with all those radishes? They’re not an easy ingredient to play with. Outside of putting them in salads, I’m not sure I’ve seen any other creative ideas for them.  Well, Juniper came up with this recipe, and since I’ve tasted it, I can say “witness!”, it was really good. So the next time you have an extra half-pound of radishes sitting around, give this a try.

Radish Butter

Ingredients:

1/2 pound round red radishes, trimmed, at room temperature
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, completely softened
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or 1/2 teaspoon Maldon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground white or black pepper
About 24 thinly sliced rye toast points, toasted slices of French bread, water crackers, 2-inch celery sticks, endive leaves, or romaine heart halves

Instructions:

1. Put the radishes in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the radish is chopped into very fine dice, four or five 3-second pulses.
2. Transfer the contents to a length of cheesecloth or a double thickness of paper towels and wring out the excess liquid.
3. Transfer to a medium bowl and add 4 tablespoons of the butter.
4. With a rubber spatula, cream the radish and butter together, adding more butter 1 tablespoon at a time, until the mixture comes together in a smooth, pliable mass.
5. Transfer the mixture to a 2-cup ramekin or bowl, sprinkle the salt and pepper over the top, and serve immediately. (The butter will keep, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
6. Remove it from the refrigerator 15 minutes before serving to let it soften. Sprinkle the salt and freshly ground pepper over the radish butter before serving).

 

Picture below, added to breakfast scramble. This looks absolutely delicious:

Crunchy Cajun Fish and Southern Greens

We love our produce market up on Piedmont Avenue, the Monte Vista market. You can find daily deals there that would wow even the most thrifty customer. Michelle came home yesterday with this bag of mixed greens that cost her $1.99. I would place the bag at roughly 4 pounds, untrimmed. The bag contained an even mix of chard (green, rainbow), kale (dinosaur and curly), and mustard greens. You can come home with huge bags of mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, or whatever is “day-old” for super cheap. One time, we came home with a bag of organic avocadoes (over 20) for $2.99. I think we ended up making avocado soup or something healthy that Michelle dug up from recipe magazine, because there were so many.

Anyway, I made this dish the last time and it turned out good, so I thought we’d give a go again this time to see if it’s a keeper. It’s a keeper. I just need a better name though, so if you have any suggestions, let me know. The whole thing probably took about 45 minutes or so, including cooking time.

The ingredients in the recipe below were prepared in advance, but cooked together at the same time. The fish took a little bit longer, only because I had to cook in two batches. But fish cook pretty quickly, so pace yourself. Also, I used dover sole because we bought a lot of it at Costco (from August 2009!!!), but you can use any other thin white fish fillets like tilapia, pompano, snapper, cod, perch, etc.

Greens:

3 or 4 pounds of mixed greens, stems or ribs or whatever they’re called, trimmed and removed, and cut into 2″ pieces
6 cloves garlic, crushed, minced
2 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
zest of two lemons
juice of two lemons

In a really big skillet, sautée the garlic in olive oil over medium-high heat. Add veggies, a little bit at a time so that they all cook until just soft and wilted. Turn heat off and add in toasted pine nuts, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix well and set aside.

Pan-fried fish:

1 pound or so thin white fish fillet
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup of Bob’s Red Mill “Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal” or dry polenta
3 Tablespoon cajun spice
additional spices if you want the extra kick: cayenne, coriendar, italian seasonings, pepper, salt
2 Tablespoon olive oil, for pan-frying

In a spice grinder, pulse together the dry cereal with spices for a few seconds to get an even mix. Pour dry contents onto a flat plate. Pat fish dry with paper towel, then dip in egg mixture. Place on cereal-spice mix and flip over a couple of times to coat evenly with cereal mix. Pan-fry over medium-high heat until just done, maybe 2 to 3 minutes per side, depending on thickness of the fillets.

It’s really yummy and something you’ll want to make again. Even if it means going to Costco and stocking up for a couple of years…I am sure you can also substitute some type of flour batter instead of the dry cereal-spice mix. This is probably a little bit healthier.

Vietnamese Steamed Eggs (Trứng Hấp)

Wow, I actually found the correct Vietnamese spelling in Word, way down on the bottom of the “symbols” list.

This is one of my favorite foods to eat of all time,and it’s turning out to be Michelle’s too. My Grandma used to make this a lot when I was just a tod, so lots of fond memories here. Plus, it’s VERY tasty, even if the name sounds a little bland. You’ll be surprised how much of this stuff you’ll gobble up and still want more. I can’t remember who asked me for this recipe, (and I apologize for how long it’s taken me to post this), but here it is. As with most Vietnamese cooking, you’ll spend the most time prepping — the cooking itself is rather simple. Altogether, including cooking time, I’d say it took about an hour. You can, of course, prepare the ingredients ahead of time and refrigerate until ready to cook. Since I usually like to make extra for lunches the next day, this recipe is probably twice the amount you’d want for a dinner, so adjust accordingly.

Also, with the regards to the “steaming” aspect. I pour the egg mixture into a big deep round Pyrex baking dish (sprayed with a light film of olive oil beforehand). The baking dish I have comes with a lid — I don’t think you’ll need it, however, but use a lid if you have one. Then I put the baking dish inside a big pot and fill it with water halfway up the baking dish. You can also do the same with a double boiler.

12 eggs
1/2 pound of ground pork
1 medium onion, chopped finely (or about 3 large shallots)
3 large cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 oz. bean thread noodles, soaked, chopped to about 1″ pieces
1 C. chopped shitake mushrooms
1 C. chopped wood ear
2 Tablespoons fish sauce
1 C. cilantro, chopped finely
Black pepper

Mix everything up well in a bowl and pour into a greased baking dish. I use olive oil spray. “Steam”, as described above, for about a half an hour, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Serve with rice and some sort of veggies — broccoli and grean beans are great. Dash with some soy sauce and sprinkle with some chili flakes and you’re in for a treat!

This recipe is very forgiving, so don’t be afraid to experiment. I’ve added dried shrimp or crab meat and it had turned out great! If you don’t like cilantro, try flat parsley. Or dill. Or chives. It’ll turn out awesome no matter what…

Another equally tasty, and probably faster, method is to cook this same mixture in a frying pan. You’ll need to adjust the amount so that it’s not too thick — probably no more than an inch or so. And you’ll need to flip it over, once one side has formed a slight brown “crust” to it. The flipping is what stops me from the fry method, since the last time I tried this, I got it all over the stove. I suppose if you use a plate….

Oh, I almost forgot to mention this, but some folks will add a layer of beaten egg yolks on top of the mixture (towards the end of the steaming period) to get that deep yellow/golden layer on top. While it’s prettier to look at, I don’t find it necessarily adds anything to the flavor of the dish. But it is the traditional style, and if you want to stick to tradition, try it out…

*Quick* and Easy Lemongrass Chicken with Wild Rice

Depending on the chicken you bring home, this might be a *quick* recipe or maybe not. Since I usually buy whole chicken, this tends to take a little bit longer. It still takes me at least 15 minutes to skin and debone a chicken…so if you’re in a hurry you should get deskinned and deboned chicken from the market. I just find it a lot less expensive to do the skinning/deboning at home. I also like dark/white meat combination (you get the best of both worlds) so I ended up combining both white/dark meet in the final product by “chunking” them both into the rice mixture.

Most of these dishes that I have posted can go directly into vacuum-sealed pounches for lucnh, and/or would be great for hiking and camping.

Ingredients:

1  whole chicken, deboned, deskinned, quartered (or 8 pieces store-bought chicken)
2 stalks lemongrass, ground in a spice grinder
1 T soy sauce
2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1-1/2 cup of uncooked white/wild rice combination

Marinate chiken pieces with a tablespoon of olive oil, soy sauce and all the ground lemongrass for a couple of hours — longer if you have the time. In a large non-stick skillet, add 1 T olive oil and brown the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes or so over medium heat. Add in marinated chicken pieces until browned on both sides (another 10 minutes or so). Add in the rice/wild rice combination and brown for another 5 minutes. Then add 3 cups of water and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes, or until the rice is cooked.

I usually serve this with some quick/easy steamed green beans.

Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to try some of Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free stuff. I have always been really fond of bread, and even though I don’t suffer from wheat allergies, I can’t help but equate gluten to wheat. When it comes to bread, if I eat it once, I’m goingt to want it again. This is completely non-scientific, of course, but my reasoning is that it’s one of those vicious cycles where you can’t feed your cravings enough. Kind of like sugar. Except I love bread like a hundred times more than sugar.

I’m not much of a baker. My desire to bake pretty much died at the tender young age of 13 when I made my first cherry pie. It was so bad that, get this, Tammy the dog would not even eat it. Anyway, I decided to give it a go — after all, how bad can it be if it’s already pre-mixed. Plus, there are all those 4/5 stars with all the glowing reviews. I decided to make the bread first. I didn’t have any milk handy, but I did have some half-and-half. And almost exactly half of the amount of what the recipe called for. So, I diluted the half-and-half by half, and added water to make up the difference. Only much later did I find out that adding water to the half-and-half doesn’t exactly equal milk (something about the milk fat content.)

 

I took this picture before I pulled the bread out of the oven, as Michelle exclaimed “It’s not a soufflé, you know.”  Indeed, that loaf retained its full shape and size the whole week after. It was huge — twice as much bread as I was after.  It was a dense loaf — something I would have expected of a darker mix, like rye or pumpernickel. But it had a really nice flavor and a sweet aroma. While it was good, it was not great. I suppose that for a sandwich or toasts, it would have been ok. However, I was looking forward to that crusty sour-doughy french bread. Oh well.  I would probably make this again, if I could figure out how to cut it in half. (And now that I’ve purchased some active dry yeast, maybe we can try it again next weekend.)

We had much better luck with the pizza. Again, the crust was not really crusty as much as it was “noodly”, but it tasted really good! And with the right toppings, the pizza would be downright acceptable. Again, it was twice the amount that we needed, so we made two pizzas, two nights in a row! The first one was a combination (pictured below) and had sweet italian sausage that I rolled up into little balls, Louisiana hot links instead of pepperoni, chopped basil, shredded fresh mozzarella cheese. The second pizza was a caramelized onion, mushrooms (shitake, crimini, white, beech), goat cheese combo. Both were instant hits. On a scale of 1 to 10, we would rate this as an 8.5 and would definitely use Bob’s Red Mill Pizza Crust mix again. The best thing about the mixes (both bread and pizza) is that you don’t have to knead, punch, roll, or any of that — just mix and go.

Over the weekend, I bought a french loaf pan from Williams Sonoma. They carry a line of Goldtouch Nonstick bakeware that I really like a lot. It’s heavy duty, and as the name suggests, nonstick. Anyway, I’m going to look up recipes for GF French bread and see if I can make some. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it…we also picked up a copy of Tartine, the famous cookbook from the famous bakery in San Francisco, whose 3,000 loaves of bread sell out within an hour when the doors open in the afternoon. We’ll just have to see…..the book even has a recipe for Vietnamese sandwich bread, bánh mì. Hmmmm…maybe I can concoct a GF version of this.

New kitchen favorites

Not so new as much as re-discovered.

The Nespresso espresso maker. I use this machine every morning. It makes the most perfect espresso. Nespresso has about, oh, 15 to 18 different types of coffee, each packed into individual capsules in an array of pretty colors. The colors are (sort of) indicative of

Image via Wikipedia

their intensities (not necessarily caffeine content). Black, the darkest one, has an intensity of 10. Purple is 9; green is 5.  The “brewing” time is different for each pod (black is slowest; yellows are pretty fast), and so is the crema on top. Each capsule is 55 cents, unless you get one of the new fancy blends from some exotic spots — those are 62 cents. Even at two shots, it’s still cheaper than getting a cup of coffee (that was my justification). We got this machine at Williams-Sonoma while shopping for a new coffee maker, but we were sold on it (there was a deal too! more justification!) when the sales associate said something about having the biggest thermal block of all of them. We decided on the spot that, of course, biggest means best.

 My second favorite equipment (not in any order) is the FoodSaver. It had gotten to the point where all I would do is cook dinner every night in order to make lunch for the next day. The concept of making extra food isn’t a bad one. But if I should miss dinner one night, that means no lunch the next day. I know lots of folks eat out, but after a while, you get tired of the same old stuff. Plus, it’s pretty expensive downtown. So, with a little pre-planning, and a lot of cooking one weekend day, we can have lunches for the whole week. The machine came with a roll of double-sided plastic (although you can also purchase pouches). You cut the roll to the size you want, seal one end, put the food in, and then vacuum and seal the other end. It is much more compact than Tupperware, so you can put a lot of them in the freezer. The bags are apparently microwaveable and boilable, although I haven’t tried that. I usually cut the bag open and put the content in a bowl at work, before microwaving it. Anyway, this machine has saved me a lot of work. There are other brands on the market, but since this is my first one — it will be a while before I can give a comparative rating. It’s working fine right now.

My last new favorite kitchen equipment really is a rediscovery. One year Juniper gave me a pressure cooker for my birthday (because I asked for it, not because she couldn’t think of something more creative). I tinkered with it a little bit, but then put it away because the menu seemed a little limited. What I have rediscovered, since we are now proud dog keepers, is that a pressure cooker makes a mean chicken broth, amongst other things. It retains all the flavor and cut the cooking time down by, like, a tenth. OK, maybe a small exaggeration, but it is incredible how tidy this little gadget is. One day, I decided to make chicken stew for the dogs. Since we usually get whole chickens, that means there is usually a lot of “carcass” left. I stuck the whole thing in the cooker and cooked it for about an hour, because I wanted the bones to be soft enough for them to eat without worrying about splintering. The most surprising thing is that after an hour, the bones are mush, easily crumbled between my fingers and yet the meat, while soft, still retains its texture and shape. I then would throw in whole zucchinis, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, or whatever vegetables, and pressure cook that in with the chicken for another 10 minutes. It is so delicious that I was afraid the girls would never go back to eating “dog” food again. Actually, I am having a hard time with Madeleine (Gingersnap! would pretty much eat anything she perceives as food.) Madeleine absolutely refuses most commercial dog food now, even the higher-end stuff. I am down to just one:  Wellness Stews.

Michelle just got me a huge dehydrator to replace the old plastic one I have. I’ll have to report in on that later — after we figure out where to put the thing. It is massive!

“Steamed” chicken with ginger-scallion sauce over brown rice medley, for Glenda B.

Dear Glenda,

Michelle threatened my life tonight until I posted this recipe for you. Truth be told, it is the EASIEST chicken dish I have ever made. (Because I really don’t have a recipe at all. I just made this up on the spot. Please feel free to edit as you see fit.)

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 medium ginger (peeled, minced)
1 bunch scallions (green onions, minced)
1/2 C. olive oil
2 teaspoon sea salt
Trader Joe’s Basmati Rice Medley
Steamed greens (bok choy, cabbage, etc.)

The most time-consuming part of this is skinning the chicken. I’ve heard that real chefs can skin a chicken in less than 5 minutes. I’m getting better, but it still takes me around fifteen.  I also de-fat the chicken as I go along. You could buy chicken that’s already cut up and skinned, but I think that’s missing half the fun. Besides, the puppies love crispy chicken skin — I fry that on the side, pour all the fat off, and make a gravy for them. You can leave the skin on if you want; it would definitely add extra flavor to the chicken. Michelle doesn’t like the skin, though, so the puppies benefit. 🙂

Anyway, what you’ll want to do is to cut up the chicken into main parts: thighs, leg, breasts, wings, drums, etc. You’ll be left with the chicken “carcass” — the boney part, which is most excellent for stock. I use a cleaver and cut the boney carcass up into smaller chunks and put that in a bottom of a big stockpot. Then, layer the rest of the bone-in chicken (legs, thighs, drums, wings, whatever has bones in it). Add just enough water to cover this. (You’ll add the breast later). Put the pot on to boil rigorously for about 10 minutes or so, and then cover and simmer for about 40 minutes.

(Alternatively, you can steam the chicken. Traditional Asian recipes call for bamboo baskets over boiling water — it’s probably just as good, if not better, but I really want to make the best use of all the chicken parts, including the stock.)

Meanwhile, slice the breast sideways so that it’s half thin. Chicken breasts are tricky because they dry out so quickly. The trick, I have found, is to cook them last — for no more than 4 or 5 minutes, until they are JUST done. More than that, they become chewy. So, what I’ve done is to hold out until the last 5 minutes or so, and add them in last. If you slice them half thin, they cook more evenly and seem to retain juices much better.

 The ginger-scallion sauce is super easy to make; the trick is to cook the sauce over low heat for a long period of time to infuse the flavor. (Also, I’m not sure of the quantities, so please feel free to adjust). Warm the olive oil in a small skillet over low heat. Add the minced ginger and heat for about 20 minutes or so — you’ll want the ginger to just barely bubble. Add the minced scallions and heat for an additional 10 minutes or so. Add the sea salt to taste. The ginger-scallion sauce, to me, totally makes this dish. I don’t know what it is about this very simple flavor, but add it to steamed chicken and it just makes the whole thing “pop”.

Greens:  I use whatever is on hand. By the time I finish with the chicken, there’s a bit of stock left over. So I just cut up some greens and cook it in the chicken stock for added flavor. I like the leafier types of greens for this dish, like bok choy or chinese broccoli. Traditional Chinese steamed chicken is usually served with a boiled cabbage wedge over white rice. And lots of soy sauce.

Oh, speaking of rice. I picked up a bag of Trader Joe’s Basmati Rice Medley and wanted to try it out. It is a combination of Indian basmati rice, wild rice, garden herbs and dried vegetables (dehydrated carrots, onions, celery, red bell pepper, mushrooms, parsley, garlic, lemon peel). I love this smell. For whatever reason, it reminds me of childhood and good times. You can create your own rice medley, of course, or use just plain white/brown rice.

Normally when I post recipes, I try to include some pictures. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of steamed chicken, so you’ll just have to take my word that it’s a really yummy dish. Let me know how it turns out if you decide to make this.