Cookbook Countdown #3 : Smokey Hot Chicken Stir-Fried with Dried Red Chillies and Green Garlic Chives

Cookbook Countdown is a monthly cooking/baking event, which I'm co-hosting with Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray.  Everyone is welcome to join us. How does it work? To summarize, you may select a cookbook from your own cookbook collection, to cook or bake from each month. That selected book shall be your cookbook of the month. You may cook any recipes and as many recipes as you want from your selected book of the month. This is a fabulous way of using your cookbooks at least once! For more information on how to join Cookbook Countdown, please click here. 

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My selected cookbook for this month, My China : A Feast For All The Senses by Kylie Kwong

My China : A Feast For All The Senses, by Kylie Kwong, is a big book with gorgeous photographs. Beautifully written, as Kylie Kwong shares her culinary travelogue across ten cities and provinces, where she rediscovers her heritage starting from her own ancestral home in the Toishan district, the birthplace of her great-grandfather. Lovely photographs throughout ; beautiful sceneries of the different provinces and their people.  From the monastery of the Tibetan Plateau, to the modern glamorous Hong Kong! And of course the food and cuisine that the locals eat. One thing that I like about this book is, the recipes are easy and simple enough to make, the kind of "everyday dish" that we would eat with our "must-have" bowls of rice at dinner time with the family. Which is one of the reasons why I bought this book, besides the gorgeous photographs with interesting travelogues to read. There are 496 pages with 80 recipes and each recipe comes with a colour photograph.  

Cookbook Countdown #3 : Recipe No. 1 - Smokey Hot Chicken Stir-Fried with Dried Red Chillies and Green Garlic Chives

from my selected cookbook for this month, 

My China : A Feast For All The Senses by Kylie Kwong

A simple stir-fry chicken dish. Just like any Chinese stir-fry dish, get your ingredients cut and ready before you start to cook the dish. Everything comes together rather quickly, and your dish would be ready in just minutes. One thing I noticed from this book, is that, almost all recipes use Shao Hsing wine and brown rice vinegar. I have Shao Hsing wine but not brown rice vinegar, so I have either substitute with the regular rice vinegar or skipped it all together in some dishes I've tried.  

Quite a nice dish, chicken is tender and despite the hot dried chillies, this is not a spicy dish. Goes well with a bowl of hot white fluffy rice.

Smoky Hot Chicken Stir-Fried with Dried Red Chillies and Green Garlic Chives
(My China : A Feast For All The Senses by Kylie Kwong, or here) 
Serves 4-6 as part of a shared meal
600gm (1lb 4oz) chicken thigh fillets, cut into 1cm (1/2 in cubes)
2 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch)
2 tablespoons Shao Hsing wine
2 tablespoons peanut oil
10 small dried chillies
2 tablespoons peanut oil, extra
5cm (2 in) piece ginger, cut into thin strips
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
1 small handful green garlic chives, cut into 5cm (2 in) lengths

Combine chicken with cornflour and Shao Hsing wine in a bowl. Cover, place in refrigerator and leave to marinate for 1 hour.

Place oil and chillies in a cold wok and then turn heat to low. Cook for about 1-1/2 minutes or until chillies begin to darken slightly. Using a slotted spoon, immediately remove chillies and drain on kitchen paper.

Leaving chilli-infused oil in wok, turn heat up to high and stir-fry half the chicken cubes for 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon. Add extra oil to work with remaining chicken and stir-fry for 3 minutes. Return all chicken to wok, along with ginger and reserved chillies, and stir-fry for 1 minute.

Add sugar and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add remaining ingredients and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Serve immediately.

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