Chickety-China, Chinese Chicken

Not really Chinese, actually but more precisely Wickety-Wales, imitation-Chinese chicken. The children have both been ravenously hungry all week , so I took the opportunity tonight and tried out some new, unfamiliar ingredients on them. Thankfully it was a successful experiment; after some suspicious poking around, both of them chowed down in a BIG way, as did Hubby and I.

Chinese Chicken


1 egg white
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp salt
700g chicken meat, diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
225g can sliced bamboo shoots

225g can water chestnuts, sliced or quartered

200g beansprouts

2 tbsp dry sherry

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

spring onions, to serve (see picture and below)

Whisk the egg white, cornflour and salt together in a large bowl, then add the chicken and mix to coat it thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate for 10-15 minutes. Mix the sherry, soy, sugar and 3 tbsp water together in a measuring jug (or something) and set aside for now.

Heat some oil in a large frying pan (or a wok, if you have one; I don't) and cook the garlic and ginger briefly, then add the chicken and fry until cooked through. Throw in the vegetables, then pour over the sherry-soy mixture. Cover the pan to allow the vegetables to steam partially, but still retain some crunch. Take the lid off the pan, add the parsley, mix thoroughly and serve, garnished with sliced or shredded spring onions, if you like (I do).

Plainly cooked basmati rice 'á la rice machine' was a fab side dish for this, as there are plenty of deeply savoury juices to moisten it. Anyway, leftover rice is always a bonus as I LOVE plain rice eaten with steamed greens, all liberally doused with soy sauce, but then I don't eat a lot of weird processed food, so I feel confident enough to allow an occasional middle-finger to the health police. And so should we all.