Tubasaluki: Quoting music since 2003

Welcome to Adventures in Asian Cooking! I’ve had this idea for a blog feature for awhile. Ever since I bought this book. I bought that book last April after realizing that 1) I enjoyed cooking and 2) I like a lot of different types of Asian food. This book does not disappoint.

The whole idea of Adventures in Asian Cooking is to cook a recipe from a different country (there are 13 countries listed in the book) and then blog about it. Volume yi (one, in Chinese) is a Chinese dish called Baw Law Gai, or chicken with pineapple.

I’ve made this dish before, its fairly simple but very delicious. To the recipe!

Half a small pineapple (I use a can of pineapple chunks. Progress!)
chicken breasts
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1 tablesppon soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil (this, I have found, gives it that distinct asian scent)
1 small clove garlic
1 tablespoon peanut oil

Sauce:
2 teaspoons cornflour
1/2 cup pineapple juice (also known as the greatest post run drink known to man. Do not dispute this)
1 tablespoon soy sauce.

Skin pineapple, or if you’re mean open the can. Then cut up the chicken into bite sized pieces. Mix cornflour, salt and pepper, and coat chicken in this. Easily done with your hands. Add soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil and mix. I did this in a pie plate, so I used my hands. I’ve also put this all in one big ziploc bag. Whatever floats your boat.

Heat peanut oil in wok. If you don’t own a wok, now is a good time in the recipe to buy one. Once the oil is heated, toss in your treated chicken and fry until the color changes. Then add pineapple. Stir fry this for about three minutes. Add the sauce mixture, stir until thickened. Serve over rice.

Recipe rankings:
Difficulty: Pretty easy. Rice cooks itself, more or less, so even though I had two burners going, it wasn’t complicated by any means.

Taste: I really like this recipe. I’ve now made it a few times (including once for the parentals, who approved of it). If you’re ever craving chinese food, can’t go wrong with this one.

Optional things: The recipe does call for small onions, which I did not use, perhaps due to a lack of onions in the apartment.

Baw Law Gai is a good recipe, and for me a good introduction to cooking Chinese food. Got familiar with a wok (not hard) and its just good. Plus, there’s left over pineapple and pineapple juice. Win, win.

Next time, whenever that is, I shall try something from Korea.

No one runs faster than you eat,

Alan