20 Minute Hoisin Chicken Stir Fry That Ticks All The Right Boxes

I've really been enjoying stir fries recently. They're quick and simple. You can use up leftover ingredients in the fridge and the longest part about them is actually the prep. Cooking takes no time at all. Today, we're making a hoisin chicken stir fry and this one is absolutely delicious. Now, the prep for this one is really simple. There's not much to it. We're going to need two large brown or yellow onions or four small ones. These ones are tiny, so I did end up using four. What we're doing is taking off both ends, slice it in half and then peel it, then make slices across. Go about a medium-sized thickness. It is better to have a larger cut on these ones. That way, they'll be al dente and you get that nice little crunch on the end product. Along with the onions, we also need a mixture of bell peppers or capsicums. I'm using one red and one green. Slice around the core. Try and get as little seed off as possible. That way, it will stay nice and clean. Take a little bit of the pith off if there's too much and then just slice these into nice batons. Try and keep them the same size as the onions. That way, everything will cook at the same time and if you make them too thick, they will take longer to cook. We then need six cloves of freshly peeled garlic. Use the side of your knife to push down and crush. This is going to activate the allicin compound, then just start chopping it up. Roughly chop it. It doesn't have to be too fine. Just make sure there's no large pieces. You can grate it as well, but it will burn a lot quicker than roughly chopping, especially when we're stir-frying for this type of recipe. We then need some spring onions or scallions. I'm using about five or six depending on size. Just take a little bit off the top. That way, we can save this for garnish and then with the remaining ones, we're going to chop these up into batons about a couple of inches long. That way, when we chop these in at the end, you're going to get that nice crunch. With the tops of the stems, these can be thinly sliced. And like I said, this is going to be used as a garnish. So we'll place this in the fridge until we're ready to serve. Last but not least for the knife prep is the chicken. We're using 500 grams or one pound of boneless and skinless chicken thigh for this one. Thinly slice it the whole way across. Try and be as consistent as possible with it. That way, it will all cook at the same rate. For our stir-fry sauce, we're going to need four tablespoons of hoisin sauce. Just make sure you scrape the bowl. One quarter of a cup of Shaoxing wine. I'll leave details in the description of what you can replace because this has alcohol in it. One tablespoon of mirin. This is the same as the Shaoxing wine, also has alcohol in it, so details in the description. One tablespoon of low-sodium soy sauce. One teaspoon of dark soy sauce. Two teaspoons of rice wine vinegar for a little bit of acidity. A small pinch of white or brown sugar. It's just going to counterbalance that acidity just to balance out the flavors. And I also use a little bit of ground white pepper just so we don't have chunks of black pepper in there. And the amount's completely up to you. Let's then get in there with a whisk. Just mix this all together. Make sure everything's broken up. All those flavors have become friends. And once it's fully mixed, just pop this aside for the time being. The marinade for the chicken is quite similar. We need one quarter of a cup of low-sodium soy sauce. One teaspoon of dark soy sauce. Two teaspoons of Shaoxing wine. Two teaspoons of mirin. Half a teaspoon of bicarb soda or baking soda. Two and a half teaspoons of corn flour or corn starch. It's just going to help the sauce thicken up. And again, with the ground white pepper, the amount's again completely up to you. Give it a quick mix. Just make sure everything's broken up, especially that corn flour, because it can turn into clumps. And you should be left with this sort of light brown foamy sauce, which is exactly what we want. Also, you can hear the bicarb soda reacting. Cool. Let's then add in our chicken thigh. Then get in there with clean hands. Just start mixing this all together. Also, just make sure you break up any pieces. Make sure nothing's stuck together. That way everything can be coated consistently. When you have all of that done, should have something that looks like this. And now we're ready to cook. Also, you may have noticed this in the background. This is my first cookbook, Dig In. The name only felt necessary. It just ties everything together really well. I am so proud of this. If you haven't seen the launch video, I posted it on Sunday night. Absolutely amazing. It's a full behind the scenes of everything that we did to create this book. If you haven't already, the pre-orders are now live. So go grab yourself a copy. Means the world to me to have all of your love and support. And I honestly wouldn't have been able to do this without all of that. So I really do owe it all to you. Thank you so much. If you do want to go grab a copy, link is in the description as well as in the comments. Thank you so much. Place a wok over a high heat. And when you start to see a little bit of smoke come from it, we can add in one and a half tablespoons of any neutral flavored oil with a high smoke point. I'm using peanut oil for this. Add in the chicken and the marinade and then spread it out so it's not sitting on top of one another. Let it sit for about one minute just to build up a crust and a little bit of color. Then we can start stir frying this, keeping it moving and cook it for two minutes. Next to go in is all of the onions and the bell peppers, both green and red. Mix this all through, continue stir frying. We're going to cook this for three minutes now just to soften up the vegetables a little bit. They'll still be quite firm at this point, but there is still more ingredients to go in, so don't worry about that. And keep it over that high heat so the heat can go through the wok properly and you don't end up stewing everything. When the vegetables have softened up a little bit, add in the garlic and then mix this around. Continue stir frying it for one minute just to allow that garlic to become nice and fragrant. Don't let it burn, so I do recommend keeping it moving. With that all done, we can add in the spring onion or scallion patterns as well as all of that stir fry sauce. Continue mixing this around, allow that sauce to come up to a nice boil. We're going to continue stir frying this for about one to one and a half minutes until the sauce is thick. It's reacted with the corn flour in the marinade and that sauce has reduced down. Then we can remove this from the stovetop. When we have all of that done, we can start serving this up. Serve it in bowls, plates, eat it straight out of the wok if you really wanted to. And the choice is all yours how you want to serve this. You can leave this how it is, plain and simple, or you can use rice, or you can even add noodles through it whilst it's cooking. I'll leave details about that in the description. An optional thing to do is just sprinkle over a couple of sesame seeds on top. You can toast them as well if you'd like. And then top it off with that green stem spring onion or scallion that we just did at the beginning. What we're then left with is this hoisin chicken stir fry. Didn't take long at all. It smells delicious and it looks beautiful too. So with all of that done, there is only one thing left to do and that is we can then dig in. Yeah, that's so good. You really can't go wrong with some hoisin sauce. It's great on so many different things. In this stir fry, it just goes so well with all of the other ingredients. Chicken's super tender. Veggies are nice and soft, but still have that bite to them. It's nice and saucy as well. It's not all dried up. And you can serve this with rice, noodles, or keep it plain and simple. The choice is all yours. Really hope you enjoyed this video. Hit that like button. It really does help me out. Helps the channel be seen by more people. And consider subscribing. And I'll see you in the next one. Thanks for watching.