Moron Chicken

Watched the Everton game this morning (2-0 - good result boys!), all the while making lunch. To go with the chicken and the rice, I made a good amount of ginger/green onions sauce.

First, chop a bunch of green onions. Myself, I like to get them fairly small, but not so small as one high-end Chinese restaurant I went to once: their green onions were like microdots. I used to hand chop the ginger into tiny cubes, but now I prefer my porcelain ginger grater. You want to end up with roughly the proportions you see below. This is going to make a lot of sauce, about 2 1/2 cups I think.

Next, it all goes into a pan with hot oil, hot enough to wilt it but not hot enough to brown it, along with - for this amount - about 1 tbsp of salt. You let it steep for a few minutes ...

Then set aside. It will now look like this.

 

For the chicken, I made a basic poaching liquid of water, chicken stock powder, rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger slices. I let the chicken marinade for 30 minutes or so in rice wine and ginger, then poached the chicken gently for around 20 minutes. Because I have an electric hob that stays hot when you turn it off, all I do is bring it all to the boil, cover and turn it off. The vegetables, I blanched in the same liquid then quickly pan fried.

I still had a lot of ginger left over, so I set about making pickled ginger or gari, a typical accompaniment for sushi, but one that I like to eat just on its own. I used my Japanese mandolin that I got in Tokyo to slice the ginger, though I do think I could have got it thinner by hand. Next, I rubbed salt into it until the salt all dissolved. This you set aside for at least a couple of hours.

You make a simple pickling sauce with Japanese rice wine vinegar and sugar (approximate ratio 3:2), boiling it for a few minutes. Next step is to cover over the ginger slices that you have taken out of the fridge and drained, then let the whole thing cool and keep in the fridge. The ginger I used is from Foody Mart and was in a big bag for a few bucks. Consequently it is much older than you would normally use - if you do try this, get a nice stem of young fresh ginger root. The ginger is in the fridge now - pics tomorrow!

I still had some ginger left over, so I made this out of the rest of it: candied ginger slices.

While I was in the "making stuff" mood, I used up the rest of the Thai bird chilis I bought the other day and made some more chili sauce. Serena tried a dot and drank about a gallon of juice afterwards. I tasted about half a dot. I think I have seriously damaged my throat. I accidentally touched the side of my head with a finger that came into contact with the sauce, and now I have what seems to be a blister.

I ended up making a small jar, but it seems inconceivable that I could finish it in my lifetime.

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