This all-in-one Main requires no exotic ingredients or tools to make, and gives you a go-to mild Asian sauce that can adapt itself to many different ‘focus’ foods creating a whole cook book full of simple, every-day suppers…
It’s a basic, every-day chicken Main. But it can also be the passport to a whole world of Asian-style dishes that have the potential to help any home cook significantly reduce their use of animal proteins, and increase their use of fresh veggies. The key is a sauce technique which produces an Asian-style flavour experience that goes with almost any meat or veggie ‘feature’ ingredient.
What you need
The source recipe for this ‘gateway’ dish calls for only 10 ingredients, total. And that includes oil to cook the chicken in, scallions for garnish, water and salt.
The basic Asian flavour is delivered by fresh ginger, fresh garlic and medium soy sauce. Balanced off by the judicious addition of light brown sugar.
As we’ve explained in previous recent posts, the cornstarch – which in other Asian-style recipes might show up as baking soda, depending on the exact technique being used – is essential to achieving a perfect, crispy, crunchy exterior coating on the chicken. And that classic coating is essential to delivering an authentic Asian dining experience!
Details are key
When the recipe calls for ‘light’ brown sugar, or ‘medium’ soy sauce, for example, be sure to use EXACTLY what’s called for. Using light soy will throw the flavour profile off balance, as will regular (dark) soy. Ditto, regular white sugar or dark brown sugar.
Though the recipe doesn’t specifically call for ‘medium’ soy, that option gives your sauce the most versatile overall base flavour from which to build variations as you get into experimenting with and adapting it to various ‘featured’ ingredients.
As you get comfortable with tweaking this dish, you’ll probably want to adjust the sugar addition to suit your specific focus ingredient(s), and your family’s preference. And as with Western dishes, you should always taste for (and adjust for) salt as needed, last thing before serving.
What about chili peppers?
Don’t add any ‘heat’. At least not at first.
This is meant to be a ‘starter’ dish to ‘safely’ introduce even the least enthusiastic Asian food newbie in your dining audience to the wonders of that mysterious and exotic culinary realm.
My take
Note that the original recipe for this dish calls for chicken thighs. Dark meat. I, personally, prefer dark meat chicken or turkey, as it offers more flavour, and is tenderer and juicier than ‘standard’ white breast meat. You could use bone-in or boneless white meat if you wish, but the flavour wouldn’t be the same. To the extent that you’d think of the result as completely different dish.
But like I said back in the body of the post, this basic sauce goes with almost any ‘focus’ main ingre-dient. It even enhances and updates the most basic tofu or paneer version of this dish. Without obscuring the fundamental delicate flavours of either of those classic ‘blank flavour canvas’ focus ingredients.
My most important rule for using this ‘basic’, ‘starter’ technique/recipe? Take the inevitable tinkering one step at a time. Which is to so say, include or exclude, increase or decrease one ingredient at a time so you come to understand how each effects the outcome!
But DO have fun tinkering!
~ Maggie J.