Chicken with Ginger and Lemon Grass

This recipe is from the best-ever Curry cookbook by Mridula Baljekar. We’ve prepared quite a few recipes from this cookbook, and they’ve all been quite good. Each recipe has not only a photo of the finished product but a few step-by-step photos.

I really like the cookbook, but I have a few complaints. The first is that the recipe for the cover photo dish is not in the cookbook. I have checked numerous times, and it’s not there. The second is that sometimes the finished product photo isn’t exactly how the dish really looks. We got the cookbook at Costco, and that may explain some of the issues.

I adapted this recipe for boneless chicken breasts. The finished product photo for this recipe makes the sauce look creamy. There’s nothing in the recipe, as written, that would give it creaminess. The sauce has great flavor, but was too watery for my taste, so I removed a few tablespoons of the sauce and mixed it with a couple of teaspoons of cornstarch, then I put the cornstarch mixture back into the pan, brining it up to a boil, and that lead to a more creamy sauce.

We like this recipe, but if we make it again, I’ll add some veggies to the dish, and -s said “use more lemon grass.” -s also said “it’s good, but not craveable good.”

I HATE fish sauce. Well that’s quite a bold statement. I don’t mind fish sauce when it’s in a dish prepared for me at a restaurant. I have a very sensitive sense of smell, and whenever I use fish sauce at home it nauseates me. The smell just lingers too, and I can’t stand it. So whenever a recipe calls for fish sauce I substitute soy sauce. I’m sure there’s a flavor component missing when I do this, but I’d rather miss the flavor than smell that awful smell!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. chicken breasts, sliced
• 1 TBSP canola oil
• 3/4 inch piece fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 inch piece lemon grass, shredded
• 2/3 cup chicken stock
• 1 TBSP soy sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 oz. peanuts
• 2 green onions, sliced
• zest of one orange
• Rice: I put the zest of one lemon in the rice while it cooked

Directions:

1. Slice the chicken
2. Heat oil in a wok or large pan. Add the chicken, ginger, garlic, chilli and lemon grass and cook until nearly cooked.
3. Add the chicken stock, soy sauce, sugar, salt and lemon juice.
4. Let mixture simmer until cooked
5. Serve over hot rice and sprinkle with peanuts, green onion and orange zest

Chicken with Ginger and Lemon Grass:

best-ever Curry cookbook: