Sesame Chicken

I have been in the mood for some "Chinese" food.  And I do love the sweet and sour chicken. But making it can be a little time consuming. And though it is spring break, I have been busy today with other household chores (like baking sandwich bread and organizing the coat closet). 

So I needed easy.

But good.

Well, on Pinterest, I found just the right recipe.

Sesame Chicken.

It looked easy. Had good reviews. Was light in calories. And would partner well with fried rice which we will love to eat around here. 

So sesame chicken it was.

My pickiest eater said, "This is a really good meal even if it isn't sweet and sour chicken."  Trust me, that is a compliment coming from her.

And the chicken? ALL gone.  Nothing left.

There may have actually been a child licking the dish clean.

Yes, really.

I agree with all of the above. It isn't sweet and sour chicken (much milder) but it was good. And with the fried rice, it was an excellent pair.  We will definitely have this again, especially on those nights my time is limited.

Ingredients:
1/2 Tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 to 2 pounds chicken tenderloins cut into chunks

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

2 Tbsp whole wheat flour (or whatever flour you prefer...the original recipe called for one but I doubled it since I had closer to 2 pounds of chicken)

1 Tbsp sesame oil (seriously, could anything smell better???)

2 garlic cloves minced

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp white vinegar

1/2 cup chicken stock (I used broth since I had that on hand)

sesame seeds (the original recipe used both white and black...I couldn't find black so we just used white)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

The original recipe has you start on the stovetop with a skillet then move it to the oven. I try NOT to put my skillets in the oven if at all possible, so I just stuck a 9 x 13 inch dish in the oven and transferred the chicken to it from the skillet.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet at medium heat.

Meanwhile, put the flour, salt, and pepper in a ziplock bag. Add the chicken to the bag and shake away.

Place the chicken in the hot skillet and sear on each side of the chicken for about 3 minutes each side.

Meanwhile, mix together the sesame oil, garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and chicken stock.

Once the chicken is browned, transfer to the hot dish (or keep in the skillet) and pour the chicken stock mixture over the top.

Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

Once cooked through, sprinkle sesame seeds over the top and serve.

Enjoy!

Fried Rice

Sorry I have been missing in action.

School started back. That means life got crazy. :)

Anyway, here is the fried rice recipe we made to go with the sweet and sour chicken (all found on Pinterest). I have tried different fried rice recipes, but this has been my favorite so far. It does take a little time and a little planning ahead, which thankfully we had time for that day!

Ingredients:
3 cups cooked white rice (We cooked it earlier that day and refrigerated it...from what I have read, it actually works better if you start with cold rice)

3 tbsp sesame oil (Okay, I confess...I just couldn't shell out the money for this since it wasn't an ingredient I would use often. I used our typical oil, a canola/vegetable/soy oil mix. New note:  I finally gave in and bought toasted sesame oil. Oh my word. Worth every cent!  It has such a wonderful flavor!)

1 cup frozen peas and carrots thawed (I actually did about half a cup frozen peas...didn't worry about thawing...and diced a few "baby" carrots we had in the fridge)

1 small onion chopped (I just chopped a yellow onion and used part of it)

2 tsp minced garlic (I would normally use fresh but what I had was moldy, so I had to use dried minced garlic)

2 eggs slightly beaten

1/4 cup soy sauce (I think we added more but we also used more rice)

Directions: Saute the onion, garlic, and peas and carrots in the sesame oil over medium heat in a skillet.

Reduce heat to medium low. Push the food over to one side and stir fry/scramble the eggs on the other side until cooked through.

Add the rice and soy sauce. Cook until heated through.

It was very good.

I do think if I had had any bacon, I would have cut it up and added that.

But I didn't.

Otherwise, there wasn't much I would change.

It was good stuff.

I have another recipe to share...maybe tomorrow. :)

Reba

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

Yes, it is another Pinterest recipe. I have been craving PF Changs. And we actually have gift cards to go there. But it is a little bit of a drive, so we haven't gotten that way in a while. So when I saw a recipe for BAKED sweet and sour chicken (with a fried rice recipe on the same page), I was ready to cook.

Except then life got busy, and this kept getting pushed to the side.

Today I had in-service. The kids stayed home with Mark. There was no homework to mess with. The chores had been taken care of throughout the day. So it was a good night to try something new. And I happened to have all of the ingredients for this. Perfect. :)

This was fun to make. Especially when hubby came in and helped. I love cooking together. (Not that this was complicated and needed both of us, but I never turn down a helping hand :)

The chicken itself doesn't take long but it does require attention.

The end result though? Hubby thought it was BETTER than PF Changs. And we ended up with NO chicken leftovers. The kids devoured it. Bummer for me since I usually take leftovers for lunch. There is some rice left anyway...

Anyway, here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
3-4 boneless chicken breasts (of course, I rarely use breasts...I used tenderloins)

salt and pepper

1 cup cornstarch

2 eggs beaten

1/4 cup canola oil (I used a "smart balance" blend of canola, soy, and olive oils)

For the sauce:
3/4 cup sugar

4 tbsp ketchup

1/2 cup vinegar

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp garlic salt (I didn't have any garlic salt so I used garlic powder)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325.

Rinse the chicken and then cut into cubes. (I can never get cubes, so mine was more like small chunks :)

Season with salt and pepper to taste. I just put the chicken in a gallon size ziplock, then I added a little sea salt and freshly ground peppercorn and shook the bag to distribute it.

Dip the chicken into the cornstarch. I just added the cup of cornstarch to the bag. Then I closed the bag and shook away.

Dip the covered chicken into the eggs.

Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the chicken until browned...NOT cooked through.

We just had a little assembly line. I had the bag of chicken/cornstarch, the bowl of beaten eggs, the skillet, then the 9 x 13 glass baking dish ("greased" or in my case, sprayed with cooking spray).

We used tongs to remove the chicken from the bag, dipped it into the eggs, put it into the skillet, then moved it to the baking dish once browned.

It worked well.

Next, mix the sweet and sour sauce ingredients together.

Pour over the chicken.

Bake the chicken for one hour. Turn the chicken every 15 minutes.

I was tempted to skip the "turning" of the chicken but I am glad I did. The sauce would get really thick. I am pretty sure if I hadn't turned the chicken, it would have burned. I just set the timer and turned it in between working on the fried rice (recipe coming soon).

Delicious.

Really, it was.

The sauce was delicious.

And the chicken. Oh yum.

Like I said, there were no leftovers!

Reba