Recipe - Hot And Spicy Chicken With Lemon Grass

1 teaspoon Cornstarch
3 tablespoon Water
1 pound Chicken breast*; skinless,
boneless, cut or sliced up 1/4" thick
& 11/2" long
3 tablespoon Vegetable oil
10 Whole dried chiles; or to
taste, (optional)
One fourth cup Minced lemon grass;
preferably fresh
1 tablespoon Minced garlic
2 tablespoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Ground chili paste; and /or
1 small fresh red chili,
thinly cut or sliced up
One half cup Homemade unsalted or canned
lowsodium chicken stock
1 tablespoon Fish sauce
One fourth teaspoon Salt
One half Yellow onion; cut or sliced up into
thin wedges
1 cup Julienned carrots; blanched
and shocked in ice water
Fresh cilantro sprigs for
garnish

* You may substitute a firm, whiteflesh fish such as swordfish, tofu or
pork for the chicken.

Combine cornstarch and water in a large mixing bowl until well blended. Add
the chicken, making sure it is well coated.

Heat the oil in a nonstick fry pan over low heat. Add the dried chiles and
cook until they puff up and are slightly brown (not black), about 10
seconds. Remove, drain on paper towels, and set aside.

Increase the heat to high and add the lemon grass, garlic, sugar, chili
paste, and fresh chili until fragrant, about 1 minute. (The sauce is
exquisite when the sugar is slightly caramelized.)

Add the chicken, and using chopsticks or a spatula, stir to separate. Cook
until chicken begins to turn opaque, 3 to 4 minutes. Reduce the heat if the
pan starts to burn.

Add the chicken stock, fish sauce, salt, onion and carrots and continue
cooking for another 3 to 4 minutes. Add the reserved chilies, garnish with
the cilantro and serve immediately with rice.

Notes: The technique of creating aromatics is particularly important in
this recipe. Once the pan is sizzling hot, add the seasonings. Stir often
to extract the flavors and to prevent burning. If the fire is too hot,
simply slide the pan to an empty burner to cool a bit. If the seasonings
burn, start over from scratch or the dish will taste bitter.

From: "The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking" by Mai Pham
: Published by Prima Publishing, 1996
: As Heard on The World, Thursday, June 25, 1998

From: The World Website (PRI) http://www.theworld.org, converted by
MM_Buster v2.0m.

Posted to MMRecipes Digest by Steve Zielinski stevez@ripco.com on Nov
27, 1998