Chicken and Lemongrass + Kale

I have a ton of midterms/papers/other obligations this week, and what do I do?  Update my blog, clearly, because I have a ridiculous backlog of lovely pictures and lovely recipes to share with all of you, my faithful readers. (…cricket…cricket…)

This recipe comes from one of my boyfriend’s friends, who got it out of an unknown newspaper and changed it up a little.  We altered it a bit as well and ended up with something halfway between the original and his friend’s version.  It was pretty delicious, so here you go!

Chicken and Lemongrass

4ish heaping tsp of thin-sliced or ground lemongrass
2 tsp sugar
Heaping 1/2 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp dry sherry, dry white wine, or Chinese cooking wine
1 tsp chili garlic sauce
3 tbsp coconut milk
4 c onions, chopped
4-6 stalks celery, cut into 3inch strips
3 scallions, sliced thin
1.25(ish) lbs skinless, boneless chicken breast, sliced thin
2 tbsp canola oil (we used 1 tbsp canola and 1 tbsp sesame)
Crushed dry-roasted, unsalted, skinned peanuts

Bring 4-qt saucepan of water to boil.

Combine sugar, salt, oyster sauce, and sherry in a small bowl.  Combine chili garlic sauce and coconut milk in another small bowl.

Blanch onions in saucepan of boiling water for 5 seconds.  Drain very well and set aside.  Reserve water (or just refill saucepan), and bring to a simmer.  Blanch the chicken for about 10 seconds, just until it loses all its pinkness on the outside — it should be really white, in fact.  Drain it very well and set aside.

Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat.  Pour your oil into the wok, add the chicken, and stir a few times.  Add the onions, lemongrass, celery, and scallions, and stir gently for 2 minutes so the onions stay a bit crunchy.

Add the oyster sauce mixture, turn the heat to medium, and stir for a couple of minutes.  Add the coconut milk mixture and stir for another minute.

Top with chopped peanuts, and serve over rice, if desired (we didn’t).  Serves about four.

We decided to serve this with some kale, very simply prepared.  If you’ve never had it or never worked with it, as was my situation, don’t be afraid!  It’s actually really good, and not hard to prepare at all.

Kale!

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Wash your kale pretty well.  The center stalk/vein is very tough and chewy, so we cut the leaves off of the stalk to avoid using it.

Put a little olive oil or butter in a saucepan/skillet, and sauté it just until it turns bright green.

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Serve it up and enjoy!