Steemit Culinary Challenge # 10 Anglo-Sino Chicken Dish: The Cocky Royal Mandarin

Fuse English with Chinese, they said. 

Don't forget that 2017 is the year of The Rooster. they said.

Oh, and red is good, use red, they said.

Consider it done, I said.

Well, done about 12 hours later, after I did what most self-respecting English and Chinese women do. Naturally, I went shopping for all the accessories I would need, first.

Most of them came directly from China and any woman will tell you that when you are cobbling an ensemble of anything together, it becomes all about the accessories and the finished presentation.

Then I went to the grocery store and bought several vegetables, fruit and a root that grows in China.

Then I bought several vegetables that grow in Canada, which is a British Commonwealth country, so that gives me my full "Anglo" tie-in.

The Cocky Royal Mandarin is fried chicken that has been encrusted in ground almond and enveloped by a mandarin, ginger, orange sauce. This is perched on top of  a medley of gently sauteed vegetables and severed on top of a bed of garlic infused double fried cauliflower rice.  (End of fancy menu speak.)

It's completely grain-free and dairy-free. This makes it whole food, full-on, throw a damn spear and chase down a chicken, Paleo.

(O.k., I'll try to tone down my English cockiness.)

Let's look at some of the Chinese influences:

Just look at that fantastic plate. I picked it up at a thrift store for .50 cents. (It's plastic! I know, I was shocked by that too.)

The red bowl and cotton scarf came from the Dollar store and were $2 each. The red place-mat and the container with the chicken wire and the red rooster, I already had.

It all worked, I thought.

Next, I picked up some very specific ingredients at my local grocery store.

My fully Chinese ingredients include: Royal Sugar Mandarins, fresh snow peas, and ginger root. All of these were actually grown in China and imported into Canada.

Now that I have established "how" my dish qualifies as an Anglo-Sino dish, let's get to it.

The tools:

1. a large frying pan;
2. a wooden stirring utensil;
3. a butcher's knife;
4. a fork;
5. a selection of measuring spoons and cups;
6. a food processor;
7. a vegetable peeler;
8. a high power blender like a Vitamix, a Ninja Pro or a Bullet;
9. and a wok.

The ingredients:

1. a medium size cauliflower;
2. an 8 oz or 227 gram package of mushrooms;
3. a 200 gram package of snow peas, cut in thirds;
4. 3 green onions;
5. 1 medium carrot;
6. 2 stalks of celery;
7. 1 red pepper;
8. 1/2 a green pepper;
9. 1/2 a yellow pepper;
10. 1/2 an orange pepper;
11. 2 large chicken breasts, boneless, skinless and cubed;
12. 3 tsp of minced garlic;
13. 3, 1/2 inch pieces of finely chopped ginger
14. 14 tbsp of coconut oil ( all will be used for frying the vegetables and chicken).
15. 3 eggs;
16. 3 tbsp + 1/2 tsp coconut sauce (gluten-free soy sauce alternative);
17. 1/4 tsp of toasted sesame seed oil;
18. 1 cup ground almonds;
19. 2 tbsp of coconut flour;
20. 2 tbsp of water;
21. 6 sugar mandarins;
22. 1 naval orange;
23. Pink Himalayan and freshly ground pepper to taste;
24. and sesame seeds to garnish. 

(It's a massive list.)

Directions:

• Make the riced cauliflower. (I went ahead and wrote a blog article about this staple already. If you haven't read it and are interested, you can read about it here: https://steemit.com/paleo/@rebeccaryan/riced-cauliflower-a-versatile-base-and-a-paleo-staple 

(This is a key item readily used in Paleo cooking and it required it's own spotlight.)

This is what the riced cauliflower will look like when it is finished. Just make it and set it aside, we will be frying it a second time to create "cauliflower fried rice." A very English version of Chinese food.

•  Gather the remaining vegetables and chop them and mince the ginger.

• Grind the almonds in a food processor until you achieve the consistency of a coarse flour.

• Fry the red pepper, and green onion and fold into the riced cauliflower, that you have set aside.

For this recipe, I don't typically clean my frying pan between fried items. Everything is being fried in coconut oil by the tbsp. Just add more coconut oil as the vegetables soak it up.

• Crack an egg in a bowl, add 1/2 a tsp of coconut sauce, 1/4 tsp of toasted sesame seed oil and whisk.

This is what it will look like:

• Wisk it together and scramble it, in the frying pan with a little bit of coconut oil. 

Break the scrambled egg up into pieces as you fry it.

• Add the scrambled egg to the riced cauliflower, green onion and red pepper mixture that you have set aside.

•  Heat 4 tbsp of coconut oil in the wok.

• Fry all the vegetables, 1 tsp of minced garlic and a 1 inch piece of minced ginger in the wok until the vegetables start to sweat a little and just start to soften. We want the vegetables to still maintain their shape and a little bit of a crunch.

• Add the cashews and continue to fry everything together for approximately 8 minutes over a medium flame.

• Next, crack 2 eggs into a bowl and whisk.

• Cut both breasts off a fresh chicken and skin them.

Here are the 2 breasts with the skin and bones removed:

• Cube the chicken breasts.

• Dredge the chicken cubes in the whisked egg and then the ground almond flour.

Here's the bowl of almond flour:

• Melt 4 tbsp of coconut oil in the frying pan.

• Fry the coated chicken pieces.

• After 8 minutes, turn the pieces over and fry for another 8 minutes on the other side. Be careful, the coconut oil is hot.

• Turn the flame down low and make the mandarin ginger orange sauce.
• Peel the orange, mandarins and a 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger. (Make sure there aren't any seeds in the orange or mandarin sections.)

• Add the fruit, ginger and 2 tbsp of water to the blender and mix really well.

• Add 2 tbsp of coconut flour and blend again.

This is a thick orange, ginger flavoured sauce.

• Pour all of it on top of the fried chicken and simmer for 5 minutes, while you re-fry the riced cauliflower mixture, in the wok. Make sure the scrambled egg is evenly mixed through the cauliflower blend and add 2 more tbsp of coconut sauce to replicate the flavour of fried rice. Keep it moving so that the cauliflower mixture doesn't stick to the bottom of the wok.

•  Place the hot re-fried riced cauliflower in the bottom of a large bowl. Then place the fried vegetables on top of it. Then place the orange ginger mandarin chicken on top of that.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste and garnish with sesame seeds.

A few more shots of The Cocky Royal Mandarin:

Enjoy!

 A big thank you goes to:

@sweetsssj, the guest judge this week.

@oaldamster, the logo designer.

@vegascomic, the trophy designer.

@smooth, @sirwinchester, and @knozaki for sponsoring the prize purses.

and last but not least, @englishtchrivy for all the work she does to keep this challenge/contest going.

If you are continuing to celebrate the New Year or are just getting started with your celebrations, I wish you all the best in 2017, the year of The Rooster!

I welcome your comments and invite you to follow me on my journey.

~ Rebecca Ryan