About the Recipe
If you visit a Chinese restaurant in Japan after eating Chinese food in China, you might be how different it is - more - well,...Japanese. The truth is the Japanese don't really favour highly spiced or oily foods, so although Chinese foods in Japan is very popular, it is adjusted to suit the Japanese palate rather than offering an "authentic" experience (whatever that is) . It reminds me of that expression, "eat what you like and like what you eat.."
Ingredients
1 chicken breast
1 tbsp + 1 tsp potato flour*
1 tsp Japanese cooking sake
3 chinese cabbage leaves, chopped
1/2 onion (70g), sliced
4 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
50g carrot, peeled & thinly sliced
10 sugar snaps, rinsed
10 bamboo shoots slices (tinned)
1 garlic clove, minced
5mm slice ginger, peeled & minced
a little salt & pepper
2 tbsp veg oil
2 tbsp + 1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
240ml + 1 tbsp water
2 tsp bouillon powder (swiss vegetable stock)
400g / 14 oz cooked rice
* if you don’t have any potato flour, corn flour is fine as a substitute
Preparation
cut the chicken into a bite sized pieces, then marinade with 1 tsp each of soy sauce, sake & potato flour - set aside for at least 10 mins
heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan, add the minced garlic, ginger and chicken pieces & fry for 2 mins
add another tbsp of oil to the pan, add the carrot, onion & sugar snaps & fry for 1 min
add the bamboo shoots, mushrooms & chinese cabbage & fry for 1 min
add the salt, pepper, water, bouillon powder, soy sauce & oyster sauce, mix and bring to the boil
dissolve 1 tbsp of the potato flour in 1 tbsp of water, add to the pan and stir well until the sauce thickens
your Chinese style chicken chukadon is now ready - ladle over a bowl of freshly steamed Japanese rice