Stir-fried lemon-y chicken, with long, thin, green crunchy things.
Based heavily on a recipe by the very good Bill Granger.
- Grab a mortar and pestle and throw in
- a couple of cloves of garlic,
- a teaspoon of tumeric,
- a green chill or two that's been diced up,
- and a pinch of salt.
- Pound them up until it's paste-y.
- Chop up some chicken (thighs work best), then mix them up in the paste. Let it marinate in the fridge for about 10 minutes.
- Make the sauce.
- Heat up a wok or large frying pan.
- Stir fry half of the chicken for a few minutes, then set it aside. Stir fry the second half.
- Add the first half of chicken back. Add some (chopped up) batons of celery, some trimmed and halved asparagus and stir fry for a minute or two. (If you're not too fond of either of these, substitute for something green and crunchy: broccoli, mange tout, thinly sliced green pepper, bak choi stems (and add the leaves at the last minute)).
- Chuck in the sauce from before, and some chopped up spring onions, and stir fry for another minute.
- Serve on a bed of steamed jasmine rice.
- Grab a bowl and add:
- a few big glugs of fish sauce;
- a glug of soy sauce;
- the juice of half a lemon (or, for a more zingy version, use two whole lemons. It will wake you up!);
- two big pinches of sugar;
- a whole bunch of ground white pepper.
- Swap the chicken for harder green veggies (like broccoli) and marinate those instead.