Not Just a Man's World

This is a simple, quick stir-fry with a mix of flavours that compliment each other while providing plenty of depth and variety.  It’s also an easy way to use up leftover cold chicken – see the notes at the bottom for how to adapt the recipe for leftovers.

Chicken stir-fry

Ingredients (serves 4):
4 chicken breasts, roughly cut into inch cubes
1 large red onion, roughly chopped
1 yellow pepper, roughly chopped
8-9 untrimmed spring onions (including the green tops), roughly sliced
250g shiitake mushrooms, roughly chopped (cut the biggest ones into quarters or halves, but otherwise they don’t need chopping up)
5 tsp ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
1 lemongrass stalk, 4-5 inches long
2 tbsp dark soy sauce

Directions:

1. Heat a little olive oil in a wok or large frying pan.  Add the chicken and stir-fry over a high heat for 5 minutes until it is sealed and partly cooked through.
2. Add the onions, peppers and ginger, keep it moving in the pan while you stir-fry it briskly for a minute and then turn the heat down to a low setting.  Leave over the low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally while the onions caramelise a little and while you prepare the lemongrass and remaining vegetables.
3. To prepare the lemongrass, cut the very end of the white bulb off the lemongrass stalk and cut in half lengthways.  Remove the outer layer if this seems woody or brown.  Next, finely slice the halved stalks into small pieces and crush the lemongrass in a pestle and mortar to release the lemony flavours and scents and to break down the woody, fibrous texture.
4. Add the mushrooms and lemongrass to the pan, turn the heat up and stir-fry for a couple of minutes until the mushrooms are starting to wilt.
5. Quickly add the soy sauce, mix round to ensure everything is well-coated with the soy sauce and to ensure the soy sauce is warmed.  Serve immediately.

Using pre-cooked chicken:

We often make chicken dishes with chicken that we have pre-roasted, especially when we are on weight loss diets.  When we are both on weight loss diets I will roast 6 chickens at the weekend and dissect these all into a large Tupperware box which we keep in the fridge.  This quantity of meat will then do our lunches for 7 days and dinners for 6 days.

It is easy to use up cold roast chicken with this recipe.  Miss out step 1 and add the chicken with the mushrooms and lemongrass at step 4, stir-frying until the chicken is warmed through (if the chicken pieces are quite chunky you may want to add them a couple of minutes ahead of the mushrooms and allow it to warm through a bit while the heat is still low). 

For 4 servings you will want all the meat of a medium sized (1.5kg) roast chicken.  Without the bones this works out at about 625g of cooked chicken.

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: quick-cook chicken, mushroom and spinach
2. Paleo recipes: pak choi stir-fry
3. Paleo recipes: Chinese pork stir-fry
4. Paleo recipes: pine nut stuffed chicken thighs