This Chinese garlic chicken recipe for pasta is spicy, with Asian flavours that come from ingredients typically found in Chinese cuisine - like chilli, sesame oil and soy sauce, and garnished with coriander.
I share this as a variation of my other, non Chinese garlic chicken recipe for pasta that uses more traditional Italian pasta ingredients like olive oil, parsley and parmigiano reggiano or parmesan cheese.
As I mentioned in the other recipe, maybe 90 percent or more of Chinese recipes use garlic - except for Chinese vegetarian dishes, as Chinese vegetarians do not eat garlic, onion, leek and related vegetables.
So for me, it's not good enough if the recipe happens to include one or two cloves of garlic - as a minor ingredient. A garlic chicken, garlic shrimp or any other garlic recipe has to feature garlic quite strongly.
So this is not the typical Chinese garlic chicken recipe that you might find in Western cookbooks, containing just a bit of garlic. Here. the garlic plays a major role.
In this case, however, ingredients like chilli, sesame oil and coriander all have distinctive flavours as well.
So this Chinese garlic chicken recipe might be said to have a similar character as Pasta Puttanesca, which also features several strong-tasting ingredients nicely blended, rather than competing for attention.
The result is a more complex flavour, rather than one that is just garlic. This should still satisfy garlic lovers!
Chinese garlic chicken recipe for pasta / noodles
I
ngredients (serves 4 to 6):
- 4 to 6 pieces chicken thigh meat
- 6 to 8 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 or more fresh red chilli, cut finely or blended
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 3 tbsp peanut oil or other Chinese cooking oil, such as light (untoasted) sesame oil or rice bran oil.
- Fresh Chinese lettuce (cos lettuce) or Romaine lettuce, for serving
- chopped coriander or sping onions, for garnish
- 300 grams dried pasta, or noodles, cooked according to instructions.
Method:
- Cut the chicken into bite size pieces, marinate with garlic, chilli, soy sauce and sesame oil. Set aside for at least half an hour.
- Heat peanut oil in a heavy pan. Fry the chicken pieces until they are cooked through, about 6 to 8 minutes.
- Serve with pasta or Chinese noodles, with lettuce on the side.
- Garnish with chopped coriander.
Notes and suggestions:
- Almost every garlic chicken recipe that I've come across uses chicken breast meat. Unless you particularly like chicken breast, I recommend the thigh meat (above the drumstick) instead. Personally I find chicken breast to be flat and bland.
- Besides chicken, this recipe also works well with pork (or turkey, but again I prefer not to use breast meat) but not with red meats like beef or mutton.
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