Minute Chicken - Americanized Chinese Food

This has been sitting on the back of my mind for a while and I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to get around to write about Americanized Chinese food. Having mixed feelings about this for a long time, I generally skewed towards not wanting to openly showing love for it for not being “authentic” enough. To this day, I still have a hard time making Chinese food for a lot of my friends. Besides this struggle between making something that’s “authentic” I also feel a burden of representing this food in a way that I really shouldn’t mess up. I’d also like to show recipes that my parents passed on to me that they too would be happy eating. Honestly, this is a dish that they make and enjoy.

Minute chicken is a great dish because of how simple and delicious it can be. It’s funny that for such a long time, I didn’t know that this was an Americanized Chinese dish. The influences are definitely Cantonese and the primary seasoning should be oyster sauce to complement the chicken. Honestly, making this recipe is the first time I ever tried to measure any seasoning before. My mom does this style of cooking particularly well and this is her take on it. It has a few quirks that are definitely adopted for home style cooking like not using very high heat, but it’s so good that I’m surprised that this dish has stayed in Hawaii. Supposedly the dish is named this because it’s so easy to make it takes only a minute to prepare.

What nudged me to write about this was recently coming across this article about chef Jenny Dorsey. I thought what she’s making is really interesting and read some of her thoughtful IG posts. I had a brief exchange with her on one of her posts and some of the ideas shared made me want to go ahead and write about this. Her post was about stereotypes and we had an exchange about how minorities have a tendency to sometimes fight among ourselves for representation. We have so few opportunities to be seen as creators and are often boxed into a position of being a passive spectator.

There are so few realistic narratives for Asian Americans that there’s always an immediate burden that it should automatically represent all experiences well. Just read up on a lot of criticism about Crazy Rich Asians written by other Asians and you’ll see what I mean. I think this knee-jerk reaction happens because Asian Americans really want to see themselves honestly represented so when the rare opportunity comes, other Asian Americans are emotionally invest in it hoping that will see themselves in it and since we have such a diverse amount of backgrounds, it is bound to disappoint many.

We should be reminded that we have experiences from all class and educational backgrounds, immigrants who have come at different pivotal historical events such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, World War II, the repeal of the Magnuson Act, or my personal political beef with the most recent wave of Chinese immigrants. There are ethnically Chinese people but may have migrated to other countries like Vietnam for generations before immigrating to the US. We also have ethnically Chinese people who were adopted and raised by white parents who have a completely different experience. And this doesn’t begin to cover the experiences of other Asian Americans and we are obviously not a monolith. But, we need to assert ourselves and our experiences a lot more without hesitation or perfection or else we risk our future being determined not by our own terms.

Recipe:

2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs, fat trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces

Salt, to taste (when I wrote to recipe, I added about ¼ tsp)

Sugar, a pinch

MSG, a very small pinch

Ground white pepper, a pinch

1 tsp Soy Sauce

3/4 tsp Knorr Chicken Bouillon

1/2 tsp Sesame Oil (optional to make it a little more fragrant)

1 scant tsp Corn Starch

1/2 tbsp Premium Oyster Sauce

2 large Garlic Cloves, roughly chopped

Peel and roughly chop garlic and set aside.

Skin and trim any excess fat off the chicken thighs. I like to save them in a bag in the freezer to make stock when the bag is full. Cut the meat into roughly 1 inch pieces and set aside in a bowl.

In the bowl of chicken, add salt, sugar, MSG, white pepper, soy sauce, Knorr chicken bouillon, and sesame oil. Mix to combine. Heat a wok or skillet over medium high heat and when the pan is just about heated, add the corn starch to the meat and mix to combine. I’m looking for a very light velveted batter for this one and you may need to adjust the amount of corn starch.

When the skillet or wok is ready, add neutral oil like canola or vegetable oil and apply a thin coat. Remove any excess oil. Add the chicken by spreading it out across the wok or skillet and turn the heat down to medium. Do not flip until about 3 minutes. You will need to adjust this time based on how strong your stove is. What you are looking for is a deep brown crust that will form with the help of soy sauce and corn starch that was added. You should also look for how the doneness of the meat will creep up the sides. I was taught when the doneness of boneless chicken thighs like this reaches halfway up the piece, it is ready to flip.

Flip and sear the other side for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and start periodically tossing for about 1 more minute.

Have your serving dish ready. Add the oyster sauce and continuously toss to coat and caramelize the oyster sauce. This step should take only about 30 seconds even for a home burner. When the sauce is just heated and coats the meat plate immediately.