Szechuan Sunday Dinner

Last night we were torn between going out to eat or staying in, we opted to stay in. It was cold and dreary out all day and neither one of us wanted to venture out. Neither one of us had any idea what to fix for dinner either. Maybe something simple? But what did we have on hand? Looking through the fridge and freezer, we found some frozen chicken breasts and some nice zucchini. Ok, good start but now what to do with it.

Out came the Land of Plenty Cookbook by Fucshia Dunlop. I flipped it open to the index and found one recipe for Zucchini Slivers with Garlic (chao nan gua si). A fairly simple recipe. Slice and sliver the zucchini, salt it to draw out some of the water, then stir fry some garlic in a little oil, toss in the zucchini. Voila! You're done. Biscuit Boy added a shake or two of hot pepper flakes to add a little kick to it.

The chicken proved to be a little more challenging. Not to cook...rather which recipe to try. After reading several aloud to Biscuit Boy, we settled on this one: Chicken Slices in Sichuan Pepper and Sesame Oil Sauce (jiao ma ji pian). This one takes cooked, cooled chicken sliced that is covered with a sauce. The sauce is sichuan pepper corns soaked in hot water and drained. They are mixed with sliced green onion and a little salt then processed into a paste. Mix that with a little soy sauce and some sesame oil and pour over the chicken. Yum!

Add a little rice and we had ourselves dinner in less than 30 minutes. Biscuit pup (a.k.a. carbo-hound) got a little rice but really wanted some of the chicken. Sorry little dog, too spicy for ya. (next time I'll put some aside before I add the peppers just for you).