Diced chicken with green peppers

This is a Cantonese recipe. It is very colourful and delicious, but it calls for a few rather unusual ingredients which can be either omitted or substituted. If you have difficulty in finding dried mushrooms, use fresh ones, though the flavour will be different. You should have no difficulty in getting canned bamboo shoots from delicatessens or most supermarkets, otherwise substitute courgettes (if in season) or even young carrots.

1/2 lb chicken meat (boned and skinned)
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp rice wine or sherry
1-2 slices ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 egg white, lightly beaten
2 tsp cornflour
4-5 dried mushrooms, soaked (or¼ lb / 100g fresh mushrooms)
1/4 lb (100 g) bamboo shoots
1/2 lb (225 g) green peppers, cored and seeded
1 clove garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1 spring onion, finely chopped
3-4 tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

Dice the chicken, mix it with the wine and ginger root and add egg white and cornflour. Then dice the mushrooms, squeezed dry and with the stalks removed, and also dice the bamboo shoots and green peppers. Finely chop the garlic and spring onion.

To cook, warm up a little oil in a pre-heated wok or frying pan and stir-fry the chicken for a short while. Scoop it out with a perforated spoon, then heat up the rest of the oil, throw in the garlic and spring onion, followed by the green peppers, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, and stir for about ½ minute. Now add salt and sugar, and return the half-cooked chicken to the pan and stir-fry all together for about one minute. Serve hot.

© Deh-Ta Hsiung and reproduced with his kind permission.