Not Your Typical Salt and Pepper Chicken

Okay, I'm just going to jump right into this post. A favorite asian dish of mine and The Butcher's is my salt and pepper chicken. It's not your typical salt and pepper chicken that you might get in a chinese restaurant, but it's super seasoned with salt, pepper, chili flakes, garlic and jalapenos. This recipe takes a little patience, but it's really pretty easy.

Ingredients:

1- 1.5 lb. Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (about 2-4 breasts), cubed into bite sized pieces

5-10 Garlic Cloves, sliced thin

1-2 Jalapenos, sliced thin (or even chopped finely)

Vegetable Oil

Flour

Himalayan Pink Salt

Fresh Cracked Pepper

Red Chili Flakes

Asian Cooking Wine

Korean Teriyaki Stir Fry Sauce

Sesame Oil

Water

Lime Juice (and zest, opt.)

Directions:

        Begin by preheating a large wok at medium to high heat with about 2 inches of vegetable or canola cooking oil. Next prep your chicken for frying- you want it to be cut into bite sized pieces. After all the chicken is cubed, liberally sprinkle it with pink salt and cracked pepper. Then add a few tablespoons of flour to the chicken to coat (you will want to mix up your chicken so that it's nice and covered with the flour). I don't measure most of my ingredients, as I think "eye- balling" is perfectly fine! 

       After the chicken is prepped and the wok is hot, you can begin to fry the pieces in batches.You can check to see if the wok is hot enough, by dropping in a small slightly moist balled up pieces of flour into the wok. If it begins to sizzle and float to the top of the oil, it's ready! I fry my chicken in small batches, as to not crowd the wok. As soon as the chicken pieces have become a nice golden color (about 3 mins), remove them from the wok and drain on a paper-lined plate. Sprinkle the chicken with more pink salt (please note: while pink salt may be larger in size, it is more mild than regular table salt). 

        Once all your chicken is fried and drained, remove the excess vegetable oil from your wok (reserve about a tablespoon). Place your wok back over the heat and turn the heat down to about medium. Add a tablespoon or two of sesame oil to the pan. As your wok will probably still be pretty hot, you can add your garlic and jalapeno slices right to the oil. (Note: I gave an estimate of how many garlic cloves and jalapenos to add to this recipe above because some people prefer things to be a bit spicier than others. But, the garlic and jalapenos will mellow out in the oil.) Sprinkle the garlic and jalapenos with, you got it, pink salt, cracked pepper and red chili flakes, and allow to sauté for about two minutes.

       Finally, after the garlic mixture has softened and become a light golden color, add your chicken back into the wok. At this point I add lime zest and the juice of one lime, along with a 1/2 cup of clear asian cooking wine, a 1/2 cup of water, and a few dashes of Korean Teriyaki Stir Fry Sauce. The wine and lime juice help deglaze the wok (so use a wooden spoon to scrape the garlicky goodness off the bottom of the wok). Allow the liquid to thicken around the chicken, stirring occasionally (about 2-3 minutes). This recipe is not a very saucy recipe- but that certainly doesn't mean it's lacking flavor! After the sauce has thickened, serve over rice or noodles (I prefer rice, but that's just me). Give this recipe a shot and enjoy!

PS- The Butcher decided to make us a side dish of stir fried green peppers! So delish! He sautéed thinly sliced green bell peppers in the wok with veggie oil, spicy chili oil and soy sauce until they were slightly tender. Seriously, try these peppers as well! (I think we might be doing an encore of them tonight.)