The Dinosaur Diet: Chicken Strips
Happy Dinersaur makes more chicken with our friends on Chicken And A Move Night (disclaimer: these were not chicken tenders, just strips)
Tonight was the second Chicken And A Movie night for me, my roommate and our two friends: Mario and Paula. Last Wednesday was our first time making a panko crusted chicken recipe together and after we watched Alien; we decided to make a routine of it and try a new chicken recipe every week. This week was a Chinese-style chicken strips with lo mein noodles and sprouts.
This new tradition began when our friend, who is living in a house off campus, mentioned he wanted to learn how to make chicken to add protein to his meals. I’m more of a pork person and most of the time Happy Dinosaur doesn’t eat anything. Personally, I think some of my dinosaurs are probably vegetarian but are too polite to say. But after having seen chicken being made before and been part of the process at my house, I decided this task could not be too difficult and would be one step further to conquering the Insurmountable Kitchen.
I came up with four recipe cards with no measurements and usually I stand in the kitchen trying to weigh with my eyes so I can tell our friends what quantity of ingredients is actually going into what I made. I think an important skill to know in cooking isn’t just how to follow a recipe or even to know a recipe by heart, but rather to know when certain meats are “done,” and how to prepare what base seasonings go with them.
For me, I know how to cook a plain pork chop and how to cook some plain chicken strips and when you combine those elementary kitchen protein skills with knowing how to make seasonings or marinades, the kitchen is your oyster. Here’s a walkthrough of what we did in two sections:
Making Chicken Strips on the Stove
I have a wok pan that I love but stovetop chicken strips can be done in a basic frying pan. Strips should be cut to look like the shape of a french fry: approximately 1/4-1/2 inch wide by the length of the butcher cut. The preparation for the strips can be tedious and my misleading instructions had us with double the servings needed for four people. I figured for this meal we would need one boneless chicken breast per person, but measuring with my eyes led us astray when Mario (who shopped on his own) showed me an overflowing bowl of chicken that he’d been cutting for fifteen minutes. A better estimation of serving size for an individual is about four ounces (weight is typically on the food label). For reference, we had about two pounds, which led to lots of leftovers.
I usually never add any meat to a cold pan, it’s much better to pre-heat your pan in oil and whatever seasonings you like to use. For our recipe, we pre-heated the pan in a tablespoon of sesame oil for ten minutes (or until the oil has lowered in viscosity to be able to quickly coat the pan if you tilt it). We added our “base” and let it pre-season the pan for about 30 seconds. When a pan is already hot, you don’t want to pre-season for too long or the seasonings will burn. If you put the oil and the seasonings in at the same time before adding heat, you may want to leave them in the pan for an extra couple of minutes.
We added our chicken strips in—and I’m very glad my wok was big enough to fit it, though we did have to save some in the fridge—and started moving the meat around. For people using a wok on high heat, you can hold the wok above the burner and shake it to move the pieces around, or you can keep on medium heat in a frying pan and move the pieces with a wooden spatula.
We cooked the chicken until it was white on all sides and no longer pink if you cut the strip in half. This took about ten or fifteen minutes but may be less if you’re cooking a smaller portion. Don’t be alarmed if there is any juices in the bottom of the pan—this can be drizzled over rice or pasta as a sauce. Halfway through the cooking process, I added a tablespoon of soy sauce and sesame oil to keep the meat from drying out. If you are cooking with a European style base (rather than our Chinese base), you can add olive oil or white cooking wine. Then your chicken strips should be ready to serve.
I would advise to never feed chicken to your Happy Dinosaur…Happy Dinosaurs would hate knowing if they were eating their Holocene Epoch progeny.
Making a Chinese Base Seasoning
I just love making stuff with this stuff. I can barely describe what is actually in a base. I fancy myself good at making Chinese food since I am Chinese, but I grew up in the US, so I should probably consult with someone who learned to cook in China. I get my inspiration for Chinese food bases from whatever I’m eating. I think I’m pretty good at guessing flavors and so far I have narrowed it down to these critical ingredients for any Chinese meal:
Garlic
Shallot and Onion
Scallion
Ginger
Sesame Oil
Soy Sauce
To make a base, which can be used for meats, noodle dishes, or vegetable stir fry, I get a small bowl and combine 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1-2 tbs minced onion, 2 tsp minced shallot, 2 chopped scallions, 2 tsp minced ginger, 1 tbs sesame oil and 1 tbs soy sauce. (I have never measured these out but for this is the measurements I have for Mario and Paula’s recipe and it worked very well). These can be altered in their ratios to each other based on how much you tolerate each type of ingredient. I would say for people with a sensitive digestive system to cut back to one clove of garlic or for people who like a sharp, sweet flavor, to increase the amount of scallion. I usually mix with a spoon or a mini spatula.
I often add a pinch of salt and pepper when I’m preparing this base for extra flavor. For our recipe, I split the base into 1/4 to pre-season the wok for the chicken, 1/4 for the sprouts and 1/2 for the lo mein noodles. There was about 6 tablespoons of base.
This base was delicious for our recipe but can be used for any assortment of other meals. I’ve used the same base for bok choy and salmon in the oven, beef and broccoli stir fry, and even for miso soup.
I hope you enjoyed my kitchen ramblings…I’m interested to see how my culinary skills will progress and how to incorporate more nutrition into Happy Dinosaur’s wholistic wellness mission. Please let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to learn how to make and I will do my best to share with you the skills to be able to make something new on your own.
This Happy Dinosaur is excited for fall recipes…specifically pies!
And for anyone wondering what we watched, it was a riveting episode of Wife Swap