Since the oven is still not working (the repair man said he should have it fixed this Friday), I had to come up with something other than blueberry cheesecake bars to post this week. I’ve had this salad dressing recipe for some time, but for lunch yesterday I decided to try something different.
Instead of breading the chicken tenders, I marinaded the chicken in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, and little bit of red pepper. Thankfully the broiler is still working, so we were able to cook the chicken. My family agreed it tasted marvelous.
The original dressing recipe came in the same e-mail that I got my General Tso’s Chicken recipe from. It’s the dressing for Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad. We usually serve the it over salad with rice noodles and sliced almonds.
Oriental Salad Dressing
Dressing before and after being mixed (I think it’s lumpy because I didn’t let the ingredients sit at room temperature. Still tastes good, though).
1/3 cup honey
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
½ cup mayonnaise
2 teaspoon Grey Poupon Dijon mustard
¼ teaspoon sesame oil
Prepare dressing ingredients by mixing in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.
On Friday, my oven stopped working. I was in the middle of trying out a new recipe for snickerdoodle bars, and the oven refused to heat up beyond 165 degrees. The repair man said he wouldn’t make it out to our house until this Friday, so I’m stuck making stove-top meals.
sesame chicken
Well, maybe “stuck” isn’t the right word when I can cook things like this wonderful stir fry. It is has a thick, sweet sauce and works equally well with chicken or beef. Unlike the sesame chicken or beef you usually find at Chinese take-out places, this meat isn’t deep fried. I like the un-fried taste for this dish, but if you want to try crispy chicken in the sesame sauce you could use the chicken from my General Tso’s recipe.
3 whole boneless chicken breasts or 1 pound of beef
Marinade
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
a few drops of sesame oil
Cut the meat into 1-inch cubes. Mix the marinade ingredients and marinate the meat for 20 minutes.
Sauce
½ cup water
¼ cup tapioca starch (or cornstarch)
1 cup chicken or beef broth
1/8 cup rice vinegar
¾ cup sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 clove garlic (minced)
Mix together the water and tapioca starch in a small sauce pan. Add broth, and the remainder of the sauce ingredients. Set aside (you’ll be heating this to a boil in a little while).
Cooking
Sesame Beef
Fry the meat in a wok or deep skillet until done. Add desired vegetables and stir fry. I typically use carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms. When I have them, I add bamboo shoots and cabbage. Really, you can use whatever you like.
Just before vegetables are finished cooking, bring sauce to a boil, stirring continuously. Pour the sauce over the chicken and vegetables. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve with rice.
This is one of the recipes that has earned me the title “Red-Headed Chinese Chef” here at home. The original recipe came from a forwarded e-mail, and I don’t know the exact source. It’s one of the more involved Chinese recipes I make and takes at least an hour to prepare (count on longer for the first time making it), but it’s well worth the effort. We mainly cook this for special occasions — it is the dish my mom requested for Mother’s Day.
The most important step for this dish is frying the chicken. You want to make sure the breading is sticky, almost to the point where you can’t stir the chicken/breading mixture. That will make for a nice crispy coating that won’t get soggy once you add the sauce.
General Tso’s Chicken
Chicken/Breading
3 lbs. chicken meat (this recipe tastes best with thigh meat, but chicken breast works as well)
¼ cup soy sauce
1 tsp pepper
1 egg
1 cup tapioca starch (corn starch will work as well)
Cut chicken into medium-size chunks. In medium bowl, mix chicken, ¼ cup soy sauce and pepper. Stir in egg. Add 1 cup tapioca starch and mix until chicken pieces are coated evenly. Chicken should be sticky with coating. If breading seems too thin, add more starch.
Add a little vegetable oil to help separate chicken pieces. Divide chicken into small quantities and deep−fry until crispy.
Sauce
½ cup tapioca starch
¼ cup water
1 ½ tsp. minced garlic
1 ½ tsp. minced ginger root
¾ cup sugar
½ cup soy sauce
¼ cup rice vinegar
¼ cup rice wine
1½ cup hot chicken broth
For sauce, mix cup tapioca starch with water. Add garlic, ginger, sugar, ½ cup soy sauce, vinegar, wine, and chicken broth. Stir until sugar dissolves. Refrigerate until needed.
Place a small amount of oil in wok and heat until wok is hot. Add 4-10 hot peppers and stir−fry briefly. (The number of peppers depends on how hot you want the dish and the type of peppers you are using. Lately, I’ve been using frozen cyan peppers, and I need 4-6.)
Add desired vegetables and stir-fry. (I use broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. Some General Tso’s Chicken is served without vegetables, others with only broccoli and water chestnuts. It’s an individual choice.) Stir sauce and add to wok. Place chicken in sauce and cook until sauce thickens. Serve with hot rice.
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