Bang Bang Chicken

Bang Bang Chicken

bang bang chicken

Is everybody feeling the heat lately? Recently Edinburgh has been getting a lot warmer. It’s great weather when I have a day off but it’s really horrible when I have to work under this kind of weather because the temperature can easily reach 40~50 degree.

So today I share with you the recipe of this Bang Bang Chicken. This dish is great for hot weather. I always love to have this dish during the summer and it’s healthy and low fat as well. Especially the green bean noodle is really low in calories and fills you up quickly. It’s a great food for people who want to lose some weight ready for wearing their summer bikinis.

In this particular method of preparing bang bang chicken, I chose to steam the chicken rather than use traditional way of boiling in water because I think steaming the chicken helps keep the texture and taste better. I actually made the sesame paste myself at home because I was too lazy to go to Chinese supermarket just for a bottle of sesame paste. So I went to Sainsbury and bought two small bags of white sesame (for some reason I can’t find any where in the Edinburgh that sells black sesame!! Please contact with me if you know where you can buy the black sesame in Edinburgh and Glasgow), sauté them and use my food processor to grind them into a paste. It’s not difficult at all and taste even better than the sesame paste you bought in the market and cheaper as well.

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

 

Bang Bang Chicken

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1 chicken breast
  • 1 chicken leg including thigh. You can use chicken breast if you're on a diet
  • 1/2 cucumber julienne it
  • Handful bean sprouts blanched
  • 3 bunches green bean noodles available in Chinese supermarkets
  • 1 chili julienne it
  • 1 tsp spring onion finely chopped
  • 1 tsp garlic finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp ginger finely chopped
  • 1 tsp ground Sichuan pepper saute for 20 seconds before grinding it

Seasonings

  • 1 tsp sesame paste
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp water
  • 1.5 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp chili oil

Instructions

  1. Use a tablespoon of rice wine, 1 teaspoon grind Sichuan pepper, 1 teaspoon salt to marinade the chicken breast and leg for 30 minutes.
  2. Use a steamer to cook the chicken with a little bit of ginger slice and spring onion. After it cook just leave it to cool down.
  3. Peel the chicken with your hands after it’s cool down.
  4. Soak the green bean noodle into a bowl of warm water for 15~20 minutes until it’s soft. Cook the green bean noodle in a pot of boiling water for 5~10 minutes and soak in the cold water.
  5. Mix all the seasonings with 1 teaspoon finely chopped spring onion, 1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic, ½ teaspoon finely chopped ginger and leave it for 20 minutes and stir it a few times every few minutes to help the sugar, salt to dissolve in the sauce.
  6. Plate up all the vegetables, chicken, green bean noodle into a plate and sprinkle the sauce on the top.

 

Authentic Tang Yuan Soup recipe

Authentic Tang Yuan Soup recipe

Tang Yuan

The other day I read about Ching He Huang’s recipe for this Tang Yuan soup on the good food channel and she mentioned this dish is specifically for Chinese new year which is not right.

Chinese and Taiwanese people eat Tang Yuan during the Yuan Xiao Festival (Lantern festival) and also Winter solstice. This is a very old tradition in both China and Taiwan.

The pronunciation of Tang Yuan also has a meaning of family reunion so when we eat Tang Yuan we are thinking about our friends and family who work or live far away.

My family didn’t have money for me to learn piano or painting, drawing when I was a child so I remember I always pulled a chair into the kitchen and stand on the chair where I would watch my grandfather cook.

I used to help him cook rice and wash vegetables when I was young but although he passed away some 10 years ago I still think about him all the time, especially when I’m cooking.

I think cooking for me is not just a job or daily routine for me. It’s also my childhood memory. I hope I can share more recipes and show that Chinese and Taiwanese culture and food is not the typical stereotype. Sadly a lot of people thinking all Eastern people eat dogs, cats and anything that moves. These people are of course narrow minded idiots.

I always remember one of the head chef I worked for before shook a goose gut in front of my face and asked me: “Do you Chinese all eat this kind of stuff??” However I already told him a million times that I’m not Chinese. But I think to a lot of people if you’re “Yellow” you must be Chinese.

So today I share with you my version of Tang Yuan recipe with you and I hope you will like it. I hope one day if you see a yellow person like me you can be a bit more welcome to them. They might be a nice person and a good friend in your life. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

Tang Yuan meatballs

 

Tang Yuan

Course Main Dish