After reviewing the recipes from Skinny Meals in Heels, I decided to try a simple recipe of chicken, ginger and green bean hotpot, served with rice. This is a classic Vietnamese braised dish that is low in fat but full in flavour.
The recipe in the book required 500g of chicken but I only had about 250g, after looking in the fridge I saw that I had a courgette and a corn cob. So I removed the kernels from the cob, sliced the courgette and used them instead of going out to get some more chicken. The extra vegetables made the dish lighter and healthier as all the veggies are only added for the last 2-5 minutes in the cooking process, so they do not lose all of there nutrients and are still firm and crunchy. The recipe below is the complete version from the book, but like me you can reduce the amount of chicken and add more vegetables if you prefer. You could also remove the chicken completely that’s how how easy and versatile this recipe is.
Ingredients
1tbsp vegetable oil
5cm/2†piece of ginger, cut into julienne
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 onion or 3 shallots finely sliced
2tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
1tbsp soft brown sugar
500g/1lb 2oz chicken thigh, skin removed, boned and fat removed then diced
250ml/9fl oz chicken stock
100g/3½oz green beans cut into 2.5cm/1†in length
2tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
Method
Place the oil into a pan and gently heat, add the ginger, garlic and onion/shallots and cook for 5 minutes
Add the fish sauce, brown sugar, chicken thighs and chicken stock. Stir altogether and cook for 15 minutes.
Add the green beans (if using other vegetables to replace the chicken also add now) and cook for two more minutes. This will only heat the vegetables and not over cook them so they will still be firm. If you prefer you can cook the vegetables for longer, but I think 2 minutes is better.
Just as you are about to serve, place in half of the coriander and stir it through the sauce.
Serve with steamed or boiled rice and top with the other half of the fresh coriander.
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