I give

I've been meaning to reply to your post for a very long time, Seth, but every time I chickened out. Clearly, I'll have to print it out and think about it some more.

In the meantime, I've decided to start blogging meals that I've been cooking for dinner. This has the advantages of:

1) Not being about genocide; and

2) I can generally tell when I've made a mistake.

This dish is (badly) modified from The New Best Recipe cookbook, a book that's the culinary equivalent of The Joy of Cooking with training wheels on. Most importantly for an entry-level chef, it bleeds confidence from every pore. Small discussions before individual recipes usually discuss what not to do, and what it looks like if you do anyway, which is helpful in troubleshooting. The discussion of failure helps one learn from mistakes, unlike my memorable failure with the impenetrable Coq au Vin recipe in The J of C. Exactly how I produced that pastel lavender colored sauce shall remain forever a mystery, as blaming cheap wine only goes so far.

Anyway, on to the butchery.



Here we see on the left a pleasant marinade: soy sauce, mirin, oyster sauce, sesame oil; garlic through a garlic press, ginger. Reserved ginger and garlic is on the right. The book called for sherry and less garlic, but I feel like mirin fits in better, and Tracy was in North Carolina, so bring the garlic on.



Garlic goes into the press, garlic goes into the marinade. Chicken's in the marinade; our chicken.

The recipe recommends bok choy. But I'm too lazy to go out.



Yeah, this'll turn out real well.



Chicken gets tossed with flour and corn starch, goes into a wee fry-up.



In go peas, reserved ginger and garlic. This is actually looking all right, except for the burned chicken bits. I let the oil get too hot. In my defense, peanut oil is probably the most finicky oil I've used yet.



And there we go.

Prep time on the ginger and chicken was probably the most onerous element of this recipe. That and getting the chicken well covered with the flour and cornstarch. I'm still not entirely positive that a mix is the best way to go; I've seen pure cornstarch work better. Also, I let the oil get too hot, or didn't put enough in, or should have, you know, followed the recipe.

Next: adventures with walnuts.