Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Years ago my family and extended family got together at PF Changs to celebrate my brother Todd's thirtieth birthday.   It was my first experience having their food.   We had the chicken lettuce wraps and oh my goodness they were so delicious!   I've thought about those wraps and made them once or twice since then but this is my first time making them and sharing the recipe with all of you.   I've changed and streamlined the process a little.   I used whole chicken thighs, but you could substitute with preground chicken.   Instead of iceberg lettuce, I opted for the pliable butter lettuce but if you like the crunchy lettuce then use iceberg.   These were very delicious and a quick weeknight meal choice.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:

6 Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs (1 1/2 lbs ground chicken)

6 Cloves Peeled Garlic 

1 Vidalia Onion

1 Orange Bell Pepper

2 Heads Butter Lettuce

1 Cup Hoisin Sauce

1 Tablespoon Sriracha Sauce

2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

2 Tablespoons Rice Wine Vinegar

2 Teaspoons Cornstarch

2 Teaspoons Cold Water

Sesame Seeds

Process:

Cut the bell pepper into large chunks, peel and cut the onion into quarters.  Pulse the vegetables in a food processor into a rough dice.  Cut the chicken thighs into quarters, add to the food processor.  Process on high until chicken is ground and mixed with vegetables.  

Blend hoisin sauce, sriracha sauce, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar in a blender. Reserve 1/2 cup of sauce in a separate container.

Cook meat mixture over medium-high heat until meat is browned, add remaining sauce and reduce until thickened.  After it has reduced by half add a slurry of the cornstarch and water blended together. Remove from heat and serve spoonfuls in lettuce leaves with drizzled reserved sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds.  

Enjoy!

Chinese BBQ Chicken & Stir Fry

I really like Chinese food, and since we have a Chinese son (at least while he goes to school) it has been really fun to make Chinese food and get his opinion on how well the food tastes.  Today, Sunday, we ate left overs and our left overs included Rotisserie chicken.  When I asked my husband what he wanted with his chicken (he didn't like my idea of waffles and chicken) he said he wanted chicken, rice, and stir fry.  I wanted to make my own Chinese Barbecue Sauce.  Since it was precooked chicken, I wanted to make a Chinese shredded chicken barbecue sauce to reheat it in.  I made up a sauce recipe after looking at a lot of recipes.  I think my recipe comes pretty close to the barbecue sauce you would see in a Chinese restaurant minus the red color and some other mystery ingredients.

 Does it look like real Chinese take out? Better right?

 Ingredients for the Chinese barbecue Sauce are: 5 cloves of fresh peeled garlic, 1 inch piece of peeled ginger, 1 cup Hoisin Sauce, 1/2 cup Soy Sauce, 1/2 cup Agave Syrup, Piece of Cinnamon (2 teaspoons ground cinnamon will also work), 2 teaspoons whole peppercorns (2 teaspoons ground pepper), 2 teaspoons whole cloves (2 teaspoons ground cloves), and 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes.

 Add spices to a spice (coffee) grinder and grind until...

 It looks like this.

Grate your ginger with a handy Chinese multi-tool with grater or finely mince it.  This bottle opener, peeler, and ginger grater was a gift from one of our Chinese Exchange students we had two years ago.

Mix ingredients of sauce together.  The sauce needs something, the tang you find in Barbecue
sauce, it needs...

This,  add 1/2 cup Apple Cider Vinegar.  If you have Rice Wine Vinegar that would be good
(I ran out).

I wanted some sesame flavor too, so I added 1/4 cup Sesame Oil.  Perfect!

Mix the sauce.

Ingredients for Chinese Barbecue Shredded Chicken are: 3 cups shredded rotisserie chicken, and Barbecue sauce.

Ingredients for vegetable stir fry are: 1 zucchini, 1 cup baby carrots, 1 head of broccoli,
2 green onions.  You may add more vegetables as you like. 

Slice everything up.  I chose to slice the vegetables on the bias for the carrots and green onions
and sliced and quartered for the zucchini.  The broccoli I sliced into smaller florets.

Add enough sauce to coat the chicken in a saute pan and cover with lid.  Set burner to medium
and let the chicken heat up and absorb flavor.

Time to Stir Fry!

To stir fry, have everything ready to go.   This is a fast cooking method.  Preheat your wok on High.  Be sure to turn on your vent above your stove and also if need be, a fan in a window to draw out the smoke.  Yes this will be a smoking hot process, and that is the way you achieve Chinese Stir Fry properly.  If it wasn't so windy and cold I would use my propane camping stove outside so as to not have smoke indoors and to have a much stronger flame.  Use Peanut oil, it has a high smoke point (as in it can be heated as high as stir fry needs to be cooked and won't burn).  Are you ready to get smoking hot?  When your wok begins to smoke, add the oil, about 3 tablespoons.   It will smoke, but
keep going.  DON'T STOP NOW!!! Add broccoli, carrots, and 3 tablespoons of water.  Stir and
cover with lid. 

Let cook for 3 minutes.

The broccoli and carrots are a vibrant green and orange, so pretty.

Add zucchini and green onions, stir fry for a couple seconds.

Add Chinese Barbecue Sauce to coat, stir and...

When the zucchini is tender but not overcooked stop and turn off the burner, YOUR DONE!

We ate our Chinese Barbecue Chicken and stir fry over steamed brown rice.

Enjoy!