Chicken San Choy Bau

Ingredients:
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
6 spring onions, thinly sliced
500g chicken mince
100g drained water chestnuts, finely chopped
100g drained bamboo shoots, finely chopped
1/4 cup (60ml) sherry
1 teaspoon sugar
Cos or iceberg lettuce or witlof (chicory) heads
Oyster sauce, to serve

Method:
Heat the oils in a wok or large frying pan, add the garlic, ginger and half the spring onion and stir fry over high heat for 1 minute.

Add the mince and continue cooking for 3-4 minutes or until just cooked, breaking up any lumps with a fork.

Add the water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, oyster and soy sauces, sherry, sugar and the remaining spring onion. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until the liquid thickens a little.

Allow the mixture to cool slightly before dividing among the lettuc eleaves. Drizzle with oyster sauce and serve immediately.

Note: the filling can be made up to 2 days in advance and reheated just before assembling. Pork mince can also be used (either replacing the chicken or substituting half of it.

Adding the spring onions, garlic and ginger to the oil (I just combined them in a bowl, ready to go)


Frying


Chicken added and breaking it up


The rest of the ingredients being added (again I had them ready in a bowl)


Reducing the juices (don't cook them all away though, SCB is nice when it's juicy


Unfortunately I didn't get shots of them when complete as I took them to a party where they were thoroughly enjoyed!

 

This is a great little standby recipe for weeknights when you want something quick and tasty - we make it all the time.

 

Made a pork one the other night. Main problem was the high degree of fluid that comes out - looks like you experienced the same thing.

Any clues on how to deal with this? Good Chinese restaurants have a drier filling

 

Cheers, might give this a crack tonight.

Too much liquid? I'd guess you need much higher temperatures, boil the liquid off as it comes out. Remember the oil has to be really hot before you start. No sizzle and bubbling when you add stuff? The oil is too cold.

Of course if the liquid is mainly oil and fat, well that's an easy one to solve.

 

Overloading / overcrowding the wok, no matter how hot will result in stewing instead of frying = lots of liquid

A wok burner (110-130MJ) really helps.

Try to do the meat in small batches if you really have to.

 

Look's great and I plan to try it too.
Too much fluid, I just run the food through a sieve and then back into the wok to heat again. Something I do for Taco's too as there is a lot of fat in that fluid that I don't particularly want to eat.

 

That liquid isn't magically appearing from no where it's generally from the meat so just straining it out means your meat is dry and not as juicy.

 

I've had this in a restaurant where it has been quite spicy - would you add chillies to this recipe?

 

At the restaurant I used to work at we use:

Water chestnuts
Bamboo shoots
Straw mushroom (can)
Crushed Cashew nuts
Celery

and either pork or chicken.

 

Just redid this, actually the best SCB I've ever tasted