Ginger Chicken | RV Cooking & Healthy RV Recipes #20

What's up guys it's Christine with Irene Iron Fitness and today I'm going to show you how to make ginger chicken. Keep watching. So we are still in Newport, Washington and it is still raining out. Makes it for some fun cooking. I'm going to make some ginger chicken today. It's a stir fry and I love stir fries because they always give me that sense of dining out while still dining in in the comfort of our home. So the ingredients in this are pretty simple. There's not too much that's involved that you need to make a special trip to the store for. I would say the only thing would be some fresh ginger. Fresh ginger is really important for this dish because it just gives it a nice kick. And then also I use these apricot preserves sugar-free. I don't normally buy these. I actually did buy this just for this recipe. But if you are a jam person make sure you buy the sugar-free kind. You can put it on your toast in the morning. You can stir it into your oatmeal. Your cream of rice. Whatever it is that you want to sweeten up with a little jab of dam. Dab with a little dab of jam. And there's a ton of like sugar-free options now. Raspberry, blackberry, apricot. I'm seeing more and more. Cornstarch is used a lot in Chinese food as a thickener. It makes that sauce that nice velvety sauce. And it's going to be used in our marinade today. And it gives that chicken a nice velvety finish. And it thickens up the sauce so it's not just runny. It gives it a nice consistency that coats the chicken. So by using the cornstarch and the apricot preserves you're going to get a nice thick chicken. Liquid aminos. I always have this on hand. I use it all the time in my stir fries. It's similar to soy sauce but it's lighter. It's milder in flavor. For those that are watching gluten, this is gluten-free. Soy sauce is not. I forgot to mention this is also gluten-free for those that are watching your gluten intake. I do not follow a gluten-free diet but I like to point it out because I know a lot of you out there do. Rice wine vinegar. I also use this in all of my Asian stir fries. It's awesome. When you're buying this make sure you watch out for seasoned and unseasoned. You want the unseasoned. The seasoned kind has added sugars in it so if you're unsure just look at the ingredients and see if there's any sweeteners in there. Look at the sugar grams in there. The unsweetened, unseasoned kind is what I like. And this little ginger root. I left this here just as a talking point. You know ginger when you buy it it's normally in a big knob. Sometimes you can break off a smaller piece but other times they come in a big carton and you get a whole big pile of ginger that you really can't work through. By the time you get to it it's going to be dried out and crusty. So when you have it and it's fresh and it's plump and firm, whatever you have left pop it in a ziploc bag and into your freezer. You can store it in your freezer for a really long time and then when you have a recipe that you want to use fresh ginger for you just grate it with the microplane just like you normally would and it comes down like snow. And it means you always have fresh ginger in your freezer frozen at the peak of freshness. So that's my ginger tip. And finally sesame seeds. I like to use these as my garnishes because they really make your dish pretty. And I have found sesame seeds can be robbery at the grocery store guys. So be careful when you're in the spice aisle. Take a look at the sesame seeds. You might see like a little jar for ten dollars. I've seen it before. It's crazy. So what you need to do is check out the international aisle because this badia brand I use a lot. It's very inexpensive compared to other spices and dried herbs. And this is sometimes hidden in the Hispanic aisle. So I found this there for like a couple bucks. And then this big jar of black sesame seeds I found in the Asian aisle. And this was really cheap like three four dollars I want to say. And compared to what you will find in the regular spice aisle these are steals of a deal. So venture outside of that aisle and check out the international aisle for spices. You'll save some coin. Now on to the marinade. We're going to start with the marinade. I'm going to show you what ingredients I put into it. The marinade just has to sit for like three to five minutes. That's it. And then we'll get stir frying. I'm going to mix everything for the marinade into this Ziploc. And I'm going to start with the apricot preserves. And I like to mix it into this Ziploc because once everything's in there I can just mix it with my hand. Cornstarch. You don't need a lot you just need a little. And you can add this or leave it out. You know it really depends on the consistency that you're looking for. I'm feeling like I want something a little bit more thick and like coated. Ginger. Ground ginger. So this is a double ginger recipe. Liquid aminos. If you're going to use real soy sauce you'll probably want to tone down the quantity a bit because soy sauce is more intense. I'm also adding a little bit of regular salt. Because liquid aminos is milder I need a little bit more. If you're sensitive to salt just keep it out and adjust it at the end. The vinegar and some sesame oil. I love just a little touch of sesame oil because it brings like a nutty fragrant aroma to whatever it is that you're cooking. So that's it for the marinade. Because those preserves are in here you just want to like squeeze those up and break that up to get the other stuff well incorporated. And then once that's ready take your chicken. I'm using chicken tenders cut into strips. I like to change up the way I cut my chicken because obviously if you're eating chicken every day you're gonna get bored. So what I like to do is change up the way it's cut. Like sometimes I'll leave it in a whole breast. Sometimes I'll put it into little diced pieces. And in this case I'm gonna do strips. Because just changing the shape even if it's the exact same cut you're gonna feel like you're getting variety. And it's gonna keep you through that monotony which is so important to staying consistent with your healthy eating. Aaron likes all of his chicken cut into diced pieces because when you're living in an RV we don't set up our tables to eat. So we're often eating on our lap which means we don't have a knife and a fork. So we do a lot of diced chicken and these chicken pieces are great too. So once you have your chicken in there just massage it around. The goal with this is to get all of those little pieces covered with your marinade. And like I said this only takes three to five minutes. I'm not a big person. I'm not good at marinating stuff. I just don't think ahead that far. I don't like working in the kitchen twice. So a short marinade for me is ideal. So that's it for that. I'm gonna let this hang out. I'm gonna clean this stuff up. Get my counter space clear so we can start the skillet. Our skillet is getting hot. I have my 10 incher over medium high heat. You might see I use a skillet all the time. And I use this all the time. This is all you need for this. Start with oil. I use avocado oil. And measure out some teaspoons so that you can get your aromatics going. Today we are starting this stir fry with ground fresh ginger root, which I mentioned is key to making this recipe pop. And to grind it, grate it, I use my microplane. I like to use this tool. It gets it really fine. Gets it really fine so that the fibers and the ginger don't get all stringy in your stir fry. Because if you do it too thick or you're cutting, you can get those stringy fibers left in that aren't pleasant to get into your mouth. Also garlic. I have a couple cloves in here. And I'm also going to use some scallion, some green onion. I'm saving half of the onion to put for a garnish. Now I like to use the white portions in the actual stir fry because it's more potent. And it gives a stronger onion flavor to the dish. And I save the greener tops as the garnish because the color pops. So let's get these in. You want to be careful not to burn these, especially because they are grated so fine. They are a little bit more delicate with the garlic. So get that in. It's going to smell amazing in here. This ginger chicken is one of the first dishes that I used to start cooking. When I started cooking, I was probably like 20 is when I started cooking. And I made this for Aaron a lot. It's a little different. I've cleaned it up a little bit, but that was my inspiration for today. So you only need to let this stir fry for a few minutes, two to three minutes, until these get really fragrant. You're gonna smell when it smells really good, then they're gonna be done. Just keep your eye on it. Make sure it doesn't burn. That's the most important thing. Keep it moving around. Our chicken, we're gonna throw the entire bag in the skillet, including the marinades, because it has that cornstarch in there. It's going to thicken up. And I like to serve this over either buckwheat noodles, which is how I've been eating it the past week or two as I've been testing this out, or jasmine rice. We always have jasmine rice in the van, so that's just like a really easy way to eat it. Rice and stir fry is like peas and carrots. So this looks good. I'm gonna throw this in. Just give it a good stir and get it nice and mixed. I like to get the chicken on the bottom, so try to pick up some of the garlic and ginger so that's just not sitting crushed under the chicken and burning on the pan. Just mix it in a little bit. And then you just want to let it sit because the pan is so crowded with all the marinade. You're not going to get a really big sear on this dish. If you are looking for a big sear, you want to use like a big wok or try to pick out the chicken from the marinade to get a good sear on it. But I'm looking more for a saucy dish on this and a lot of flavor. So we're gonna let this cook like this and I'm gonna stir it up, get it cooked all the way around, get it cooked through, and then that's it. And we'll plate it up. If you want the full recipe though, check out the blog. I have the printable version with all of the ingredients and the portions that I'm using. So you can go to IreneIronFitness.com and print it out. The chicken is fully cooked all the way through. I'm getting some golden color in which is nice to see. And the sauce is substantial and I'm looking for a nice saucy dish on this. So this looks great. If you let it cook too long, you are going to evaporate some of that sauce away. So be careful. Just cook it until it's done and that's it. I'm going to put a little garnish on top now with the remaining green onion and those sesame seeds. So I'm gonna kill the heat. My sesame seeds, I am doing the black and the white. You could do one or the other or both. It just gives it a nice little color contrast. And when you're serving this over rice or noodles or something, it really does make it look like you put a little bit of effort into it. And those little touches is what makes dining in more fun than dining out. So I hope you enjoy this recipe. If you do, give me a thumbs up. Hit that subscribe. Comment below if there's a recipe that you would like to see me attempt and I will do that for you. Thanks so much for watching. Check in next Wednesday for a new recipe and watch us on Sunday for our travel vlogs. See you next time.