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Ginger Oil Chicken Closeup

NOTE:  DoT has been posting from Honolulu since late July when she left California to help her mother through some medical procedures.  She will be doing so until she can return to Orange County.

DoT’s Thot: When I was a child in Hawaii, I remember one of the notorious lunch dishes we sometimes had in elementary school — egg foo young, made with piles of bean sprouts and Chinese parsley scrambled into eggs.  How I hated the dish, because I was entirely unfamiliar with Chinese parsley, otherwise known as cilantro.  Now, it is one of my favorite herbs.

Ginger Oil Chicken — A Dish Served Cold

How times and tastes change — one of the ways to use and enjoy Chinese parsley is in a cold dish called Ginger Oil Chicken (this is the name I learned as a child — you might find variants under the name cold Chinese chicken or cold chicken with ginger sauce, etc)  I also make a variant of the traditional dish — using chicken tenders rather than the traditional whole chicken fryer.

Ginger Oil Chicken Recipe

You will need a heatproof dish to lay the cooked chicken slices on (a glass pie plate or some other heatproof plate will do).

Ginger Oil Chicken Ingredients

• 1 to 1.5  pound of chicken tenders, fresh, not frozen
• 1 bunch of cilantro enough for 1 cup cut up
• 4 stalks of green onions or scallions
• grated fresh ginger (use a piece about the size of a thumb, peeled and grated)
• salt, to taste (1/2 tsp)
• 2 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil

Ginger Oil Chicken, A Cold Main Dish

Cooking in Hawaii:  Ginger Oil Chicken Procedure

Put enough water in a pot to cover all the chicken tenders

Bring the water to a hard boil, put all the tenders into the boiling water and put a tight fitting lid on the pot; turn off the heat and let the tenders sit for 20 -30 minutes (check for doneness by cutting through a chicken tender; make sure the chicken is cooked through, but not dry).  Remove from water when done; save water for other purpose.

Slice the tenders into bite-size pieces and arrange on a glass pie plate or other heatproof dish.

Mince the chinese parsley or cilantro and green onions.  Grate the ginger finely.  Mix all three in a small bowl.  Add the salt and mix thoroughly.  Spread this mixture over the chicken pieces.

In a very small pot, heat the oils for the ginger oil chicken, watching carefully so as not to burn the oils.  Sesame oil gives the fragrance and flavor.  The canola or peanut oil helps to raise the temperature of the oil with less of the tendency to burn.  When the oil is hot and you can see the film moving over the oil surface and your hand can feel the real heat over the pot, take the oil and slowly dribble it over the chinese parsley herb mixture and chicken.  There should be a real sizzling sound and the fragrance should rise in a tantalizing manner.

You may serve this ginger oil chicken dish at room temperature or chill it in the refrigerator and serve it cold.

I hope you enjoy the cooking in Hawaii recipes.

Aloha, DoT

Related References and Articles

• Cooking: World Curisines: Oceania: Hawaiian
• Cooking Hawaiian Food
  

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