Sesame Chicken

Right now, I've been designated the "chef" (ahem.) for most of my house's lunches as well as some dinners, so I have been cooking quite a bit, but I've mostly been repeating dishes from UK. This is another one of the rare new recipes that I've tried since coming back to Brunei. Here's how to do it:

What you need:
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into small strips
Cornflour
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 spring onions, sliced diagonally
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
Vegetable or peanut oil, for frying
Stirfry sauce:
4 tablespoons teriyaki marinade (or light soy sauce)
4 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoon water
4 teaspoons cornflour

What you do:

1. To make the stirfry sauce, combine the hoisin and teriyaki sauces, cornflour and water in a small bowl. Set aside until needed.
2. Coat the chicken strips in cornflour and deepfry (or shallow fry, if you wish) until golden and crispy.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil and sesame oil in a wok. Add the spring onion, garlic and ginger, and stirfry for about a minute.
4. Add the fried chicken into the wok, add the stirfry sauce and stir until the sauce thickens and everything is combines. Toss in the sesame seeds, then serve immediately with steamed rice.

I must say, this dish looks really good. I love the sesame seeds, hehe, and the spring onions add a nice splash of green (which I hardly get in my dishes :P) The original recipe actually asked for additional vegetables, 2 carrots (julienned) and 200g snake beans (sliced). Add this into the wok after step 3 and stirfry until they are almost cooked (about 3 minutes) if you want to add them in.

The dish also tastes quite nice. The addition of the teriyaki sauce counterbalances the strong taste of the hoisin sauce (although hoisin was still the main flavour). Even my brother who isn't a fan of hoisin sauce ate this, so it really isn't all that strong. Or maybe he was just hungry :P Although I do have to admit that my sister didn't like this one all that much, she did still eat it anyway.

I think the main problem is the hoisin sauce. You either like it, or you don't. I don't quite like it, although I will still eat it (after having it for dinner several times in UK -_-;). One funny thing about hoisin sauce though. Hadi says the one in UK tasted better, even though we bought the same brand. The only difference was that the jar in UK was opened for several months, even though the label said we were supposed to consume it within 3 weeks. So it was basically expired....but Hadi liked it better, said it had a stronger taste. I don't know what to say -_- To me, both of them tasted quite similar... but Hadi is a huge fan of hoisin sauce, so I suppose he would know?