Bibimbap, a Variation

I was inspired by Bibimbap the other night, but lacking the traditional ingredients, so I made this, my variation on the Korean dish.  I didn't have any beef, so I opted for chicken, and used the veggies I had in my fridge.

Ingredients: Rice, Chicken, Asparagus, Mushrooms, 1 Leek, Garlic
Sauce: Soy sauce, sesame oil, chili powder, salt/pepper

Chop your veggies and chicken and place the chicken in soy sauce and garlic to marinate for anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours.  Add chili oil/any other relevant spices or sauces you may have. 

Prepare the rice.  I used white jasmine rice.  While the rice is cooking, heat some sesame oil in a skillet and add your veggies. 

Once they are well sauteed, add the chicken and it's sauce to the skillet.  Cook through and add more soy sauce/seasonings as you see fit.  When everything is cooked completely, put some rice in a bowl, add the chicken/veggies on top.  Finally crack an egg in the skillet you cooked the veggies in to fry it to your desired doneness.  Put the egg on top of the rice/veggie mixture.  To eat, mix everything together in classic bibimbap fashion or eat in portions, whatever you'd prefer.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

  

Another produce item in the fridge just asking to be used before it goes bad (again thanks to the roommate's CSA) so I was inspired to make lettuce wraps!  More sauces/ingredients would have been ideal (like hoisin, water chestnuts, carrots), but you work with what you've got when it's dinner time and you're not up for a trip to the store.  

So this rendition of lettuce wraps included: chicken (4 breast tenders) diced, sesame oil, 2 cloves garlic minced, 1/4 cup diced red onion, ~1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 tsp brown sugar, dash of lemon juice, 1 tsp corn starch

Begin by sauteing the garlic and onion (and potentially any other veggies you have) in a skillet covered in a thin layer of sesame oil (~1 tbsp or so).  

Once suitably softened add your chicken.  You want to saute but also potentially get a little bit of crisp from the oil.  

Once cooked through, push the meat and veggies to the side and add the brown sugar to the pan and a tbsp of the soy sauce.  Stir in place to completely dissolve the brown sugar into the soy sauce, then stir with the rest of the chicken/veggies.  

Add other sauces if you have any (teriyaki, hoisin, oyster).  Again, pushing the meat to the side of the pan, add the corn starch to the skillet and some more soy sauce.  Mix thoroughly and watch as the sauce thickens.  Add your desired amount of soy sauce.  Splash with a little lemon, and when done, spoon into the lettuce (ideally Bibb, but use whatever you have).  And most importantly, make sure to eat with your hands!

Fried Chicken Tenders

I was craving fried chicken last night after I saw a KFC ad on tv, but was too lazy to leave the house.  (Because making fried chicken from scratch is clearly less involved than getting in a car and grabbing a bucket of chicken from the window.)

So there are two ways of going about pre-flavoring meat.  Wet marinades or dry rubs.  Wet marinades typically need to sit/soak for awhile, often overnight.  Dry rubs are good to go.  But I wanted a wet marinade.  So thanks to the internet I found a recipe for a 25 minute wet marinade before frying.  (I was mostly wary of this since even when I have marinated chicken overnight, the flavor rarely shines through the fried exterior.)  And it didn't really work, but I'm ok with that because my chicken was incredibly juicy and tender.

The recipe called for soy sauce, lime juice, sugar, and dark rum.  I opted for soy sauce, lime juice, sugar, sesame oil, and a splash of light rum.

While the chicken soaked I prepared the flour.  On a plate I mixed flour with paprika, chili powder, onion/garlic powder, salt, and pepper.  So with breading/frying, there are a couple approaches.  You can dip in flour, put in an egg wash, then dredge in bread crumbs.  I went for a simpler approach of dredging directly in the flour from the marinade.

From here, I put the tenders directly into a pot of oil on medium heat on my stove.  The goal is to get that sizzle when you first add your chicken, but not have the oil so hot that it immediately burns the flour.  You need enough time for the chicken to cook through without burning the exterior.  I recommend a practice chicken tender that you cut in half when it's cooked to the color you want, and then adjusting the oil temperature/cook time accordingly.

When done frying, put on a paper towel to drain, and serve.  I found that right out of the oil it was incredibly crispy and the inside was super moist.  But when I ate one that had been sitting for awhile, the juice from the inside started to take away the crunch from the exterior.  I'd recommend serving immediately, or being more careful to remove excess liquid before dredging in flour and frying if you want the crunch to last longest.