Chinese-influenced chicken, mfenu, spring onions & oyster sauce
To make Chinese-style chicken with mfenu and a host of other goodies for four diners, you will need:
6 chicken breasts
75mm fresh root ginger
1 punnet fresh small mushrooms
1 bunch fresh spring onions
2 red or yellow sweet peppers
A lettuce-sized bunch of mfenu
2 teaspoons of Szechuan peppers (optional but marvellous)
2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
2 tablespoons canola, sunflower or peanut oil
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
5 drops sesame oil
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon Old Brown sherry
Freshly made white rice
Additional sunflower or canola oil
This meal is a whole lot of finicky preparation followed by super high-heat cooking, so be ready to keep your wits about you. We begin with the chicken. Remove and toss away the skin and bone, then cut the fillets into equal-sized sections about 10mm in width. Keeping the pieces to a standard size allows the chicken to cook evenly and fast. Appearance matters in a meal like this.
Cut the spring onions into “horse ears” on the diagonal. Peel and finely chop the ginger. Top and tail the sweet peppers and, after discarding the pips, cut the flesh into matchstick-sized sections. Thinly slice the mushrooms longitudinally. Now for the mfenu. It’s a wild, green, leafy vegetable that comes in many varieties. The taste is not too different from good old spinach. Wash the freshly picked mfenu to remove all traces of Mother Earth, then coarsely chop the leaves and stems.
In a mortar, crush the Szechuan peppers with the standard black pepper. Mix the soy sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce and Old Brown sherry in a small bowl and stir well.
Boil the rice for the time indicated on the packet, then strain and reserve for later in the proceedings. Heat up the oil in the wok or skottel until smoking hot. Taking care to avoid splashes from the hot oil, stir-fry the ginger for 30 seconds and add the chicken strips plus the Szechuan peppers for another two minutes, stirring all the time.
Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and reserve in a covered bowl. Now turn down the heat and stir-fry the mushrooms for 60 seconds, then add the sweet peppers and cook for 30 seconds.
Add the chopped mfenu and, while stirring vigorously, let it fry for 45 seconds, which should reduce its volume by more than half. Return the chicken to the wok, add the spring onions, pour over the combined sauces, stir like hell and remove from the heat.
Wipe your steaming brow, but don’t take too long.
Serve your chicken dish immediately on a bed of freshly made white rice.
And to drink? Oddly enough, a chilled glass or two of Bukettraube or Gewirtztraminer goes perfectly with this unusual combination of flavours. – David Basckin |fw
