Celebrate Chinese New Year with Garlic chicken and Egg Fried Rice. 2015 is the year of the Goat and begins today 19th February and ends on the 5^th March. Add a little fun for your family with chopsticks for your kids. I used these “Rookie Stix” and they were a big hit. If you are making a gluten free version of this dish make sure you use a gluten free soy sauce. I used the Sanchi brand which is available at our local supermarket.

The secret to Chinese cooking is to prepare in advance, so before you start chop your garlic and spring onions reserving some for the final garnish.

Garlic Chicken

2 tablespoons corn flour

Salt and ground white pepper

8-10 boneless and skinless chicken thighs cut into pieces

Oil to shallow fry. A lot of Chinese cookbooks recommend groundnut oil but sunflower or vegetable is fine

6 cloves garlic peeled and chopped

6 spring onions chopped

2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry

!-2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

A pinch of sugar

In a large bowl coat the chicken with the corn flour which has been seasoned with a twist of salt and pepper. Heat sufficient oil in your wok to shallow fry your chicken. You will need to do this in batches. Cook for 3-4 minutes until golden and cooked through. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

Discard the oil and wipe out your wok. Heat approximately a tablespoon of oil in your wok and heat over a high heat. Add the garlic and spring onion and stir fry until aromatic.

Add the chicken back into the wok and mix it well with the garlic and spring onion. Add the Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce, sugar and stir. The soy sauce will change the colour of the chicken to a golden brown.  Delicious!

Adapted from Gok Cooks Chinese

Egg Fried Rice

As a rule of thumb, I use 1 ½ cups of water for every 1 cup of rice. More water causes soggy rice. I used Basmati rice for this recipe but feel free to use long grain. Make sure you wash it though!

1 egg beaten

1 ½ cups rice/ 300g

2 ¼ cups/ 532 millilitres water

1 teaspoon soy sauce

Spiring onion to garnish.

Ideally for egg fried rice the rice needs to be cold. I usually cook the rice while I’m preparing the chicken so it’s ready to go when the chicken is done. I use a rice cooker but here is a step by step of how to cook it on the hob.

Firstly wash the rice to remove excess starch. Place rice in a saucepan and cover with the water. Place the pan uncovered onto the hob and bring to the boil. Boil until the water has reduced and is foaming bubbles at the top of the rice. Cover and reduce the heat to its lowest setting and leave to cook for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and leave to cool.

When you are ready to make your egg fried rice. Heat a tablespoon of rice in your wok and add the egg. Stir it as it cooks so you basically have scrambled egg. I found this far more successful than adding the raw egg to the rice as it usually ended in lumpy fried rice! If you want special fried rice like in your local restaurant, add cooked shrimp, chopped ham and peas at this point. Next add the rice and stir so that the egg is evenly mixed through it. Add a teaspoon of soy sauce for a little colour and serve! Garnish with chopped spring onion

What Year were you born in?