Black Bean Chicken

One of my favorite parts of cookbooks are the photos. If a recipe doesn't have a photo, I probably won't notice it or read it until I've flipped through the book a few times. I fully admit that half the time I choose recipes to try because the photos look good. That was the case with the black bean chicken (dou chi ji ding / 豆豉雞丁). That photo made the dish look mouthwateringly delicious and it was the first recipe I chose for our second Every Grain of Rice dinner.

Ingredients

We had most of the pantry ingredients on hand, and just needed to pick up some dark soy sauce and Shaoxing wine. Our pantry went from having only a couple of Chinese ingredients a few months ago to being almost fully stocked!

Some of the ingredients from the first trial. Noticeably missing from this collage? Black beans and chicken...

The main ingredients for the recipe were:

- 2 boneless chicken thighs (I used chicken breasts, $2)

- 1 green bell pepper (I forgot to get this the first time so I used red, $0.75; $1.15 for the green)

- 3 garlic cloves ($0.05)

- Equivalent amount of ginger ($0.05)

- 2 tbsp fermented black beans ($0.10)

- 1-2 tsp ground chillies ($0.05)

- 2 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens ($0.20)

- 1 tsp sesame oil ($0)

- Salt ($0)

- Cooking oil ($0)

Ingredients ready to go for the second cooking

There were also separate ingredients for the marinade:

- Shaoxing wine ($0.10)

- Salt ($0)

- Potato flour ($0.05)

- Light soy sauce ($0.10)

- Dark soy sauce ($0.10)

The cost here really comes from the chicken and the peppers, but the dish still costs under $5. I thought it would be more, so I was pleasantly surprised when I did the math. I'm sure some of the savings is from buying the giant bag of Costco frozen chicken instead of getting the chicken fresh.

Process

Step 1:  Cut chicken into cubes. Make marinade for chicken. Mix chicken with marinade.

Step 2:  Lots of other prep to do: Cut peppers into small squares to match chicken size. Peel and slice garlic and ginger (having tried it both ways, I prefer to finely chop both of these instead of using slices). Rinse and drain black beans. Measure out spices because there won't be time to do it later when cooking. Finely slice spring onions.

Step 3:  In a wok over high flame, heat cooking oil, stir fry peppers until slightly cooked, and then remove and set aside peppers. [My green peppers are a little blistered and ugly; I guess I didn't use enough oil? This did not happen with the red peppers the first time.]

Step 4:  Reheat wok over high flame. Add oil, then stir fry chicken. Add other ingredients in the following order, giving each some time to cook: garlic + ginger, black beans, ground chillies, peppers.

Step 5:  Stir fry until everything is "sizzingly delicious." Season with salt to taste. [I forgot about the salt last time. It didn't need it.]

Step 6:  Stir in spring onions. Remove from heat and add sesame oil.

Review

Black bean chicken #1

The black bean chicken is probably tied for my favorite recipe from Every Grain of Rice alongside the ma po tofu. The black beans just add this flavorful earthiness that I really love. I guess it's not surprising that it's in both dishes that are my favorites.

Black bean chicken #2

The recipe came out a little differently each time with the different types of peppers. I also think you could add in all sorts of vegetables (mushrooms, onions, etc) instead of or in addition to peppers, and have a good meal. The second time I made this, we didn't do it as part of a trio of dishes, but instead had it stand on its own, which it did quite well. I can't wait to make this again!