Ready or Not #47: Sesame Chicken

I have another really yummy recipe for you to try. I think that you will find that this is going to be another family favorite. Another really good thing about this recipe is that absolutely all of the ingredients are food storage friendly. I’ll bet in a fit of desperation you could even use canned chicken, you just wouldn’t fry it up. The sauce is what really makes it.

Dorisanne’s Sesame Chicken

Take 4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts and cut them into 1” square cubes. Put approximately ½ cup of cornstarch into a gallon-size plastic bag. Put the chicken in the bag a little at a time and shake until well coated. Add enough oil to your skillet to generously coat the bottom.

Fry the chicken until it is a crispy medium brown turning only once while cooking – don’t sit and play with it. I also like to drizzle a little bit of sesame oil on the frying chicken for flavor. The smell is divine! Pour prepared sauce over the chicken and simmer for 3 minutes.

While thickening the sauce up, add 1-½ cups of pre-cooked (not overcooked), or frozen broccoli, and sesame seeds (about 1 to 2 tablespoons) to taste. When the sauce thickens, serve over hot sticky rice.

Sesame Sauce: (I doubled the sauce recipe for you because I think it needs it.)

2 2/3 cups water

½ cup sugar

4 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

4 tablespoons cornstarch

4 tablespoons oyster sauce (absolutely necessary ingredient)

This is a really yummy recipe and really quick to make.

As the recipe says, you should serve over rice. I prefer sticky rice, but you can use regular white rice, or to be even healthier, you could serve over brown or wild rice. A lot of people are frustrated when cooking rice and they say that it just won’t cook right. It really isn’t that hard to cook and I would hate to have you revert to (that yucky) instant rice. Just remember - 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. Do not rinse the rice, just add the water to the rice, and add a little bit of salt to flavor, cover with a lid and put on a medium heat. Do this before you start cutting the chicken up and by the time you finish cooking the main dish, the rice will be done.

When the rice starts to get hot it might start to boil over, just turn the heat down. When you think the rice might be done, check it with a spoon. The way you do that is to pull the rice away from the bottom of the pan; if there is no more water, then turn it off and leave the lid on to let it finish. If you let it cook too long and the rice sticks to the bottom, turn the heat off and cover with the lid. If you let it sit for a few minutes then the rice on the bottom will release itself. Now, if you accidentally cook it way too long and it burns, don’t worry – you can still save it. First open the window in the kitchen and air it out. Next, spoon the top part of the rice out into a bowl making sure that you don’t spoon out any of the burnt area (leave about an inch of rice on the bottom). The Sesame Chicken will probably cover any burnt flavor that might be lingering (actually I know that it does from experience. That’s why you want to air the kitchen out, nobody else will know that you burnt the rice. Trust me on this.) Or you can buy a rice cooker - whatever.

Dawn