When trying to explain the dish (which I now know was sesame chicken) to people, to try to either order it again, or figure out what the heck it was that I had eaten, I referred to it as ‘sticky chicken’.  And maybe, just maybe, I should go back to that title, as really, the sesame on it is nice and all, but it really is all about the sweet sticky sauce coating!

I’m not the biggest fan of deep frying things. Now I know that traditionally sticky chicken (see how I’m trying to turn you onto that name?!) is deep fried before it’s coated with the sticky sauce and enhanced with sesame seeds, but I just don’t think that’s neccessary. Just frying it in a skillet with a little drizzle of oil on the bottom, still produces a wonderful result. It’s all in the coating people, and that’llstill be there without the deep fryer. The main difference is that it’s slightly less crispy. I can deal with that. It’s a good compromise for not having to deal with vast amounts of oil that need to be transferred and discarded afterwards.

I prefer my sticky chicken served with white rice and some stir fried vegetables, but you try it with some chinese noodles or fried rice or whatever you like. Just make sure not to skimp on the sauce!

Sticky chicken (recipe makes 2 large or 3 medium servings)

Marinade/coating

• 1 tbsp AP flour
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1-1/2 tsp dry sherry
• 1 tbsp water
• heaping 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• about 1 pound chicken breast, cubed

Sauce

• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• ground chili flakes to taste
• 1/2 clove garlic, pressed or grated
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 1/4 cup water

Additional

• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• Some oil for frying the chicken

Sift flour, cornflour, baking powder and baking soda together in a large bowl, add soy sauce, sherry, oil and water and mix until it’s a smooth batter. Place cubed chicken in batter, mix until everything is well coated and let it marinade for about 20 minutes. Cook coated chiken in a frying pan or skillet with a tiny bit of olive oil until fully cooked and the pices have a nice brown (can be fairly dark, but not burnt) color.

While the chicken is cooking add every sauce ingredient except for water and cornflour to a saucepan. Stir frequently and let it boil for a couple of minutes. Dissolve the cornflour in the water and add to the sauce mixture. Get it back to a boil, while stirring, until the sauce starts to thicken and has gotten clear and glossy. Taste and add chili’s, extra garlic (dried), some sherry or more sugar to taste.

Pour sauce into skillet with chicken, mix well and serve sprinkled (liberally) with sesame seeds. Enjoy!

I told you about our family recipe books we made during our reunion, right? Right!

My wonderful cousin-in-law C gave me her recipe for Chicken Adobo. I’d told her I wanted that. She’d made it for me once when I visited her and her husband (my cousin) in San Fransisco. It was awesome.

So instead of asking her for the recipe, I forgot all about it. Until the recipe exchange that was.

She hadn’t brought the recipe with her so she wrote it down from memory. (Which she didn’t tell me until after I made it.) Her memory served me very well though, because her recipe rocked!

Since we’ve been busy and I’d been feeling sick and whatever other reasons I can think of, I tweaked it a  little bit to save me some work. Instead of preparing a separate veggie, I just added some sugar snaps to the pan in the last 5 minutes. Also, instead of boiling rice, I added an extra potato and called it a day. Hey, if you already have potatoes you have a full meal without rice too, right??

But both of those alterations do not really change the dish. Yes, served over rice would’ve been nice to have it take up more of the sauce, but we dealt with it. It worked out fine for us. We’re imperfect people. Or at least I am…

The recipe is super-simple. Make sure though, to you do your prep in time. That said, prep takes about 2 minutes, so it really only means thinking about what you make for dinner before you actually do, but not any more than that.

As said, it was awesome, so I’ll just give you C’s original recipe and let you tweek on your own.

[print_this]Chicken Adobo

• 4 or 5 chicken breasts, cut into pieces
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 bay leaves1 tsp of ground peppercorns
• 3 cloves of crushed garlic
• 3 whole cloves of garlic
• 6 yellow baby Dutch potatoes (or if you’re anywhere except for the us, 6 small potatoes), quartered or halved
• 1 tbsp olive oil or other cooking oil of choice

(Tweak note: All my personal notes about the recipe are in Italic. I used chicken thighs, bone in. It was all I had in the chicken department and worked wonderfully – and as said, I added some more potatoes, for carb/fiber purposes and some sugar snaps at the end, for veggie purposes.)

Put chicken in a container for marinating. Pour vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, peppercorns and bay leaves into container with chicken. Cover container and marinate overnight, or for at least 2 hours before cooking

Separate chicken from marinade. Set marinade aside. Heat oil in a wok or non stick sauce pan and sauté garlic for a few seconds (I did the whole cloves in the marinade and the crushed cloves got sauteed)

Sauté chicken in the garlic until outside is no longer pink. Add the marinade and cook for 2 minutes, then add potatoes. Cook for 10-12 minutes covered (make sure potatoes are done). Serve over white rice.

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