Teriyaki Chicken

There are different ways to achieve this popular, delicious yet simple dish. I will provide you with my two different versions, the stir-fried and pan-fried teriyaki chicken.

STIR-FRIED:

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of chicken breast (approximately 1.5 lbs)

• 2 teaspoons tapioca starch or corn starch

• Pinch of ground white pepper

• Pinch of ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 4 tablespoons teriyaki sauce

• 2 tablespoons cooking oil

Steps:

1. Wash chicken breast, and pat dry thoroughly with paper towel. Chop chicken breast into cubes.

2. Combine chicken, tapioca starch, white pepper, ginger and salt in a mixing bowl. This mixture makes chicken meat tender when cooked.

3. In a large wok, heat up two tablespoons cooking oil over high heat, cook the marinated chicken cubes by stir frying, for about 5~8 minutes.

4. Drain the cooked chicken meat (Important! This prevents the final dish from being watery).

5. Reheat the wok, add teriyaki sauce, then the cooked and drained chicken, cook and stir until all chicken pieces are coated evenly with sauce, for about 3~5 minutes.

6. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

PAN-FRIED:

If you are in a hurry or don't want to deal with chopping up raw meat, or are simply feeling...creative, here is an alternative way of making teriyaki chicken with similar end results. You will notice step 5 and 6 are the same for both methods.

Steps:

1. Wash chicken breast, and pat dry thoroughly with paper towel.

2. Coat the chicken meat with 1 teaspoon salt.

3. In a skillet, heat two tablespoons cooking oil over high heat, pan-fry the chicken breast, for about 4 minutes on each side.

4. Cut up the pan-fried chicken meat into bite-sized pieces. You will find the chicken may haven't been cooked through and this is Okay since we are gonna cook them again. No need to panic!

5. Reheat the wok, add teriyaki sauce, then the pan-fried chicken pieces, cook and stir until all chicken pieces are coated evenly with sauce, for about 3~5 minutes. NOW the chicken is fully cooked!

6. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

All right, I know what you're thinking: why would you bother chopping up raw chicken meat in method #1 instead of going straight to the pan-fried version? Well, there is benefit of working with chopped-up raw meat. it's more versatile, for example, you can throw in chopped vegetables such as onions, bell peppers and green beans to cook with the meat and make an even more colorful and healthy dish! Yeah, vegetables...

After this, I took a piggy-back ride around the house on one of the children...