Chicken Bok Choy
A light, simple, Chinese-style dish
Ingredients
- 1.5 tbsp safflower (or other neutral) oil — suitable for frying
- ½ tsp green peppercorns — optional
- 2-3 baby bok choy
- 1 small breast MCAS-safe chicken (see know your ingredients)
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 pinch MSG — optional. see note.
Sauce Mixture
- ¼ c water
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 pinch sugar
- 1 small pinch MSG — small pinch
- ¾ tsp corn starch
Instructions
- Slice the chicken breast into 1/4-inch thick slices.
- Rinse the chicken breast slices under cold tap water and drain well, but don't dry.
- In a small prep bowl, add 1/4-tsp baking soda and massage into chicken and let sit for a minute.
- Measure out other dry seasonings for chicken (salt, MSG) and massage into chicken. Place chicken in fridge if you're cooking slowly.
- Coarsely chop bok choy into roughly 1-inch chunks.
- Pre-heat a wok (or large cast-iron pan) and add 1-½ tbsp oil. If using green peppercorns, add them at this point. Fry the bok choy pieces in the oil over medium heat until the green tips are wilted and the whites are soft but still have a mild crunch. Remove bok choy and set aside in a bowl.
- Turn up the heat to high and, into the same pan, lay the strips of the chicken flat into the pan. Allow them to cook until the first side is slightly browned, then flip and finish cooking an additional 30 seconds. Remove and place cooked chicken into the bowl with the bok choy.
- Quickly stir the sauce mixture to resuspend the cornstarch and then pour it into the hot wok, deglazing the pan of its cooking juices. When the sauce begins to thicken, place the chicken and bok choy back into the wok and toss until the food is coated.
Have prepared some rice, if you plan to serve it that way.
Slicing across the grain keeps it moist. Slicing on a bias helps make the pieces wider.
The baking soda changes the chicken proteins so the chicken remains soft when cooking. This is a secret of Chinese restaurants.
While the bok choy is cooking, you can prepare the sauce mix.
Notes
This is a light, Chinese-style dish that you can adjust to make as meat or vegetable heavy as you like. The sauce is a classic white sauce (normally done with garlic, which is not MCAS safe). The sauce can be omitted for a dry dish. It’s an easy one-pan weekday meal.
A note on MSG: Some people feel MSG can cause headaches or other symptoms. Glutamate is indeed a bioactive molecule, but it’s fairly prevalent in natural foods and for this reason thought not to be bad to consume in reasonable quantities. However, it is notable that commercial MSG salts are actually racemic mixtures and will likely, therefore have additional bioactive effects that naturally occurring MSG does not have. Let your body be the judge.