Super Easy Sesame Chicken

Thank you for the warm comments left on my last post everyone. You all are too sweet. I hope you had a great holiday and happy new year. We just got back from visiting my in-laws in Vancouver. While we were there, Edmonton had a bad snow storm. This is what we came back to: (sorry for the bad iPhone pics)

Hubby and I took turns “digging” cause it was way too much for one person to handle. Plus, someone had to keep and eye on the holy terrors ;-).

A couple of hours later the driveway was finally cleared. Time to invest in a snow blower? Haha. Still proud to be Canadian though. Good thing is, at least the kiddies had fun with the snow. Now onto the title of this post.

I’d like to share this simple sesame chicken recipe with you that I promised from the dinner we had with Valerie and Vanja.

Serves 4 to 6 people.

Ingredients:

• 1 packet Shanghai Bok Choy
• 1 whole chicken
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 3 to 5 Tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• a pinch of pepper
• a pinch of MSG (optional, my mom uses it, I prefer not to)
• sesame seeds
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp chicken bouillon
• 1/2 bowl water

Instructions:

Fill a pot big enough to hold your chicken with water to about 3/4 full. When water boils, put in your chicken and boil it for about half an hour to 45 minutes (depending on the size of your chicken) or until chicken is fully cooked. Once the chicken is cooked, take it out and allow to rest for about 10 minutes.

While chicken is cooling and resting, put your Shanghai Bok Choy into the chicken broth to cook. If you like your veggies crispy, boil for about 3 to 5 minutes. If you like your veggies soft, boil for about 10 minutes. Drain the veggies and leave to cool. While the veggies are cooling chop up the chicken.

In a big bowl (big enough to fit all the chicken pieces) mix together the sesame oil, salt, pepper, and MSG. Put all the chicken pieces in with the sesame mixture and give it a couple tosses. Make sure to coat all the chicken pieces.

To plate, in a medium bowl (just big enough to fit all the pieces of chicken) line the edge of the bowl with pieces of Shanghai Bok Choy as shown in the picture below.

Once done, line the bowl with pieces of chicken breast all around, then finish with the rest of the chicken meat filling up the middle. Turn the bowl upside down onto a plate. Cut the bunches of Shanghai Bok Choy in half and place them around the edge of the plate surrounding the chicken. It should look something like the picture below.

To finish the dish, in a bowl mix together chicken bouillon, cornstarch, and water. Stir until everything dissolves. Heat one tsp oil in a sauce pan. When oil is hot, add garlic. As soon as the garlic starts to brown, pour in the chicken bouillon mixture and stir. When mixture thickens, pour it over the plated chicken.

You can also grind more pepper onto the chicken at this point if you wish. Sprinkle some sesame seed onto your chicken (we left it out cause we forgot) and enjoy. We ate this with rice, but it would also go well with noodles.

That’s it for this week. Wherever you are, I hope you’re not snowed in like were were. Until next time, friends and family :-D.