chinese food | Nickoshi

I have always wanted to make chinese food but somehow found myself intimidated by the process, not because I thought it was hard but because i did not want to fail at making something so simple. Yesterday I pushed aside my trepidation and went forward, going boldly where I have never gone before (wow, just had a star trek moment!)! I made my own version of chicken fried rice and general chicken, which tastes pretty much just like you get at any westernized chinese restaurant minus the vegetables since the hubby is not into them and I had no acceptable ones on hand lol. Anyways I started out with some rice:

Oooo Rice!

I basically followed the directions to make this rice, the only thing I did differently is I used less water than called for because I do not like my rice sticky or watery (gimme that fluff!). After the rice was done it looked pretty much like regular white rice so I knew I didn’t screw it up lol.

Perfect!

Since im making two dishes that call for chicken I marinated 5 chicken breasts in teriyaki sauce for about an hour.

Look's like it's done marinating!

So once my chicken was done marinating I took two breasts and cubed it and then the three reminding breasts I cut into strips.

Chicken strips

cubed chicken.

After getting everything all cut up I started frying everything like a mad woman… first up is the rice, I throw it in the skillet and swish in some sesame seed oil and some soy sauce getting it a little combined, then I start to fry up the cubed chicken, after it gets a little toasty I add two eggs and make a very choppy scramble… at that stage I just throw it into the pan with the rice… kinda like this:

chicken and eggs, pre dump.

chicken and egg dumped on top of the frying rice

Now at this point the meal looks slightly weird and unfinished… mostly because, it is! okay so after I dump all that in I just start working it all around with a wooden spoon getting everything combined, I then proceed to layer flavors starting with onion powder, next comes sugar…. yes, sugar! I added about a tablespoon of sugar, depending on your taste you can either add or take away. once I have those flavors in I add a little more soy sauce but not too much, don’t wanna over power the rice. I mix it all really well, fluffing with my wooden spoon untill the rice turns that oh so lovely shade that tells you “im done! 🙂 ” and if you dont know it, it looks like this:

happy rice! yey!

So now that the rice is done I now start working on my General Chicken!

First thing is first… I get out the tin foil and flour… ya, this sounds weird but it’s what I do, k? so I get out the tin foil and fllllower:

This is what I do with the tin foil and flower!

now that that’s out, I take my chicken strips who are happy to be getting some attention and I throw them into the flower, I coat the chicken lightly since I want to taste the chicken and not a bunch of breading… the flower is just more for texture and to give the glaze something to hold onto.

Silly chicken strips, they seem to be having a sexy party and they forgot the sauce!

okay so, chicken gets tossed in the pan with a dash of sesame seed oil and i just herd the little nuggets around til they get brown… at which point the chicken strips finally remember the sauce and have a real sexy party!

Wow there at it again! and this time with sauce!

so when all is said and done the food came out wonderfully and it was easy… I took a picture of my plate right before dinner to show you how they look together (aww, chicken fried rice and general chicken, a match made in… uh… my pan)