Chinese cuisine offers so many casual, easy-to-make recipes. In just a few moments of cooking, you can have a delicious dish full of complex, satisfying flavors. Once you’ve mastered it, you can vary the dish to suit your own tastes. And you can enjoy it Chinese-style, as one of several featured dishes shared in small portions, as a main course on its own, or even in smaller portions as an appetizer.
One favorite is the popular minced chicken in lettuce cups. Finely chopped tender poultry (farm-raised squab is the traditional choice) is stir-fried with simple seasonings and sauce ingredients to bind the mixture lightly together, then spooned into cup-shaped lettuce leaves to be folded and eaten by hand, as you would a taco. The combination of contrasting sensations is so exciting–cool and hot, crunchy and tender, sweet and spicy–that it makes an ideal first bite for a meal. Yet the dish also can feel like an entire satisfying meal in its own right, ideal as the star of a light lunch.
Take a look at this recipe and you’ll get a good idea of its versatility. While Chinese restaurants typically use iceberg lettuce cups, for example, I like to use radicchio leaves for their bright purple-red color and because they have a refreshing hint of bitterness that nicely complements the sweet and tangy flavors. Romaine leaves work fine, too. Whatever your choice of leaf, be sure to soak it in ice water to crisp it up.
Most Chinese restaurants add extra crunch to the dish by including some deep-fried rice noodles in each lettuce cup. To make the recipe lighter and give it more color and flavor, I instead use a shredded vegetable salad.
Then, of course, there’s the meat. You can use white or dark chicken, as you prefer. Or try ground pork or lamb. Feel free to vary the spices, using more or less garlic or pepper flakes. Add a touch of brown sugar if you would like a slightly sweeter result, or, just as the chicken finishes cooking, stir in a spoonful or two of bottled Chinese hoisin sauce for an even richer flavor.
Minced garlic chicken in radicchio cups
Preparation time: 35 minutes
Cooking time: 12 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
16 radicchio leaves
3/4 pound ground chicken
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons each: soy sauce, peanut oil
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon each: toasted sesame oil, sherry wine vinegar
1 small each, shredded: celery rib, carrot
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 cup packed baby spinach leaves
3 each, minced: green onions, garlic cloves
1 piece (1-inch long) fresh ginger, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup each: Chinese plum wine, chicken broth
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint or cilantro
1. Soak the radicchio leaves in ice water in a large bowl 15 minutes. Meanwhile, stir together the chicken and cornstarch in a small bowl; season with the salt and black pepper to taste. Set aside.
2. Whisk together 1 tablespoon each of the soy sauce and peanut oil, 2 tablespoons of the rice wine vinegar, the sesame oil and sherry wine vinegar in a medium bowl. Add the celery, carrot, onion and spinach; toss. Season with black pepper to taste.
3. Drain the radicchio leaves; pat dry with paper towels. Arrange the leaves like cups on a large serving platter or individual serving plates. Divide the spinach mixture among the cups; set aside.
4. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of the peanut oil in a medium skillet over high heat just until oil begins to lightly smoke. Form the chicken into a large patty; cook until brown on one side, about 4 minutes. Add the green onions, garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes. Break up the patty with a wooden spoon; cook, stirring, until the chicken is evenly browned, about 3 minutes. Pour in the remaining 2 tablespoons each of the soy sauce and the rice wine vinegar, the plum wine and the broth. Cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 4 minutes. Adjust seasoning.
5. Divide the chicken mixture equally among the radicchio cups. Sprinkle with the chopped mint.
Nutrition information per serving:
331 calories, 65% of calories from fat, 25 g fat, 5 g saturated fat, 51 mg cholesterol, 14 g carbohydrates, 16 g protein, 1,742 mg sodium, 2 g fiber
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(copyright) 2006 Tribune Media Services
