Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

Alright, so I'm a bit volatile, we've established this I think in other posts.

*scratches his scruff* I even shaved off my beard a couple weeks ago.

Decided I like the scruff better than a chin.

 

 

Alright- let's just pretend Fubar didn't kill my lengthy post about Bangbang chicken (which I think is finalized now)

 

Phase 0:

One whole chicken: (The night before)

 

I stewed a small stewing chicken in 3 leaves of cabbage, enough water to cover (with boullion), 2 spring onions, 1/3 a jalapeno, 2 tbs soy sauce, and an orange half

Then I set the chicken and stock aside, and once chilled I stripped the bird of all meat and set the meat aside

 

Phase 0.5:

Sauce: (can be done ahead of time)

You'll require (per person)

3 tbs soysauce

2 tbs peanut butter or sesame paste

1 tbs sesame oil

1 tbs red rice vinegar

1 tbs honey (or other your preferred sweetener)

 

Mix vigorously and set aside

 

Phase 1:

Side dish, get a pot

get some rice

or some rice noodles...

prepare accordingly

 

Phase 2:

Chinese aromatics

2 spring onions chopped fine

1 tbs of fresh chopped ginger

1 garlic clove, mashed, chopped, diced, sliced- your call

1/3 of a jalapeno diced (seeded or demembraned if you must)

You can substitute chile flakes or chile oil for the jalapeno. I used it because it was all that was available fresh (would've rather used a cerrano) at the market the day I bought stuff

Begin frying the ingredients on mid-high heat in a skillet or wok with about 2 tbs high heat oil (peanut, canola, I used bacon fat because I watched it carefully)

 

Phase 3:

Matchingsticks: (can be done ahead of time)

Take 1 medium carrot

and about a fist sized portion of cucumber

 

Two ways to do this

cut the veggies in half, then cut lengthwise in about 1 cm strips and then cut the strips in half

or

use your vegetable peeler/grater to get even strips of veggies

 

set aside

 

Phase 4:

Combo-break

Once your aromatics have taken some color, and when your sidedish is about done, grab about two cups worth of shredded chicken, and toss it into the frying pan, let it get warm, or a lil brown, and then toss in the sauce, combine the ingredients making sure that the sauce does not burn

 

Put a serving of rice in the bottom of the bowl

put the chicken mixture on top

and then add the shredded carrots and cucumber in a pretty stack on top

ready for chopsticks.

(Or toss the veggies in and caramalize em a bit, but I'm not crazy about this- it makes the texture and flavor too homogenous)

 

Phase 5:

Garnish:

 

I'm a fan of providing condiments for this dish. It's kind of street food anyway

so

sesame oil

soy sauce

chile oil (sze)

garlic oil

chopped peanuts

lime wedge (Thai)

orange wedge

sesame seeds

chile flakes (sze)

cilantro (Thai)

more veggies

soy beans

bell pepper

more spicey peanut sauce

fish sauce

spicy bean paste (sze)

honey

 

would all be welcome additions to the mix.

 

Phase 7:

 

Redesign:

 

The name of the dish is bangbang chicken

and it uses shredded chicken

so

poultry works.

Turkey, duck, pheasant, whatever.

 

Texturally, you can go with ground, shredded, or whole filets of poultry and still have a workable dish

 

I think tofu would work but ... in a sidestepped, weird, friedtofu kinda way and wouldn't offer as much texture variance

 

I can also see this dish working with fried pork, or ground pork

 

I daydream of taking this dish spicier and using lamb... buuuut

red meat is kinda untreaded waters I think.

Leeks cacn work in the dish

I've also seen bokchoi.

 

The portions in the sauce can vary as well, mine is definitely a savory~nutty sauce and I've seen them pushed sweeter or MUCH hotter.

 

There's also some debate as to whether the top vegetables should be cooked or crisp, I vote crisp

and you can even pickle the cucumbers or carrots (fairly authentic to do so is my understanding)

 

I could also see using a heavy topping of herbs like chives or parsley to take the flavor a different direction, its only a couple degrees from being Thai or another style of Chinese, so play around with it.

 

I imagine this dish is good with whole fish or fish filets too. Red snapper or a white flakey fish would probably be thai-ish and quite good.

 

Oh, and shrimp/lobster/crawdad apparently work in this dish.

I'm presently in a shellfish free household though.

 

Serves 1.5

Serves 1 if you're hungry and a growing boy like me. Just up the ante if you're serving more, you should have a whole chicken (or some kind of substitute) in your fridge before you started anyway.