This is a quick chicken stir-fry dish I like to make for dinner on weeknights. I've wanted to share it here for a while now so I'm finally doing it.
I like this dish because it's quick and it's good. The slices of chicken breast, which is coated in a little bit of cornstarch and gently cooked, turns out juicy and tender. The sauce is a savory one. A lot of sauces for Chinese stir-fry recipes involve brown sugar and other sweeteners for their flavor. I love those sweet sauces myself but I try to keep dinner on the savory side so we can save a room for dessert. This is the kind of dish I lean towards most of the time.
I adapted this recipe from Martha Stewart and I've been making it for a couple of years now. A twist I've made to it is to add fish sauce. I'm not really sure what gave me the idea initially (other than, likely as not, a desire to find more uses for the bottle or maybe just the general idea of this Asian, somewhat thai-inspired, dish) but I really like that umami flavor it imparts. If you don't have or don't like fish sauce (it smells stronger than it tastes in the final dish), you can omit it and replace it with additional soy sauce instead.
So what we have is tender pieces of chicken, peppers and onions, and lots of minced garlic tossed in a light, savory sauce made of soy sauce, rice vinegar and fish sauce. It's finished with a toss of fragrant fresh basil leaves.
And the nice thing is I can pluck the basil right from my little planter sitting out on the deck! I have to tell you that I have a brown thumb and I am no gardener. I have never even had much success keeping herb plants alive for more than 2-3 weeks though my neighbor right across the street has everything from tomatoes to peppers and garlic thriving. I'm not giving up on herbs though! My awesome husband planted this box for me and it's actually thriving thus far (past the 3-week mark so fingers-crossed!).
The last time I made this dish for dinner about a week ago, I served it with brown rice (you just need to have rice with a stir-fry dish like this) and some garlic-roasted grape tomatoes.
It makes a filling yet light summer dinner.
I adapted this recipe from Martha Stewart and I've been making it for a couple of years now. A twist I've made to it is to add fish sauce. I'm not really sure what gave me the idea initially (other than, likely as not, a desire to find more uses for the bottle or maybe just the general idea of this Asian, somewhat thai-inspired, dish) but I really like that umami flavor it imparts. If you don't have or don't like fish sauce (it smells stronger than it tastes in the final dish), you can omit it and replace it with additional soy sauce instead.
And the nice thing is I can pluck the basil right from my little planter sitting out on the deck! I have to tell you that I have a brown thumb and I am no gardener. I have never even had much success keeping herb plants alive for more than 2-3 weeks though my neighbor right across the street has everything from tomatoes to peppers and garlic thriving. I'm not giving up on herbs though! My awesome husband planted this box for me and it's actually thriving thus far (past the 3-week mark so fingers-crossed!).
