Chinese Chicken Lettuce Wraps « The Moveable Feasts

By Babycatgrandma

Ingredients

• Chicken:
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, cut into rough 1-inch pieces
• 2 teaspoons Chinese rice cooking wine or dry sherry
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• Sauce:
• 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon Chinese rice cooking wine or dry sherry
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or more, for taste
• Stir-Fry:
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 celery ribs, diced
• 6 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced thin
• 1/2 cup water chestnuts, diced
• 2 scallions, white parts minced, green parts sliced thin
• 2 garlic cloves, 1 head bibb or butter lettuce (8 ounces), washed and dried, leaves separated and left whole
• hoisin sauce, for serving (optional)

Details

Adapted from themoveablefeasts.wordpress.com

Preparation

Step 1

First, prep the chicken. Place chicken pieces on a large plate or two in a single layer. Freeze meat until firm and staring to harden around the edges, about 20 minutes or so. Meanwhile, whisk the rice wine, soy sauce, oil and cornstarch together  in a medium sized bowl. Set aside. Once the chicken has been chilled, transfer about half of it into a  food processor. Pulse until coarsely chopped into 1/4-inch sized pieces, about 7 or 8. Transfer the meat to the bowl with the rice wine-cornstarch mixture and repeat with the remaining chicken chunks. Toss the chicken to coat with the rice wine-cornstarch slurry and place in the refrigerator to chill for about 15 minutes.

To make the sauce that will be later used to coat the stir-fried chicken and vegetables, whisk all the ingredients, including the oyster sauce, rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar and red pepper flakes. Set aside.

For the stir-fry, it is important that you already have all of the vegetables already prepped and chopped and the chicken chilled. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until very hot, or smoking. Add the chicken and cook, stirring constantly, until opaque and cooked through, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Next, cook the vegetables. In the now-empty skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil until very hot and smoking. Add the chopped celery and mushrooms and cook, stirring constantly, until the mushrooms have reduced to about half their size and the celery is tender but still crisp, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the water chestnuts, minced white part of the scallions and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for about 1 minute. Return chicken to skillet. Whisk set aside sauce to recombine and add to the skillet, tossing the chicken and vegetables in the sauce.

Spoon chicken stir-fry into lettuce leaves and sprinkle with scallion greens. Serve with hoisin sauce if you’d like.