Poulet Faux de Gingembre

Poulet Faux de Gingembre. Sounds so special, heh :P Hadi named it 'specially, but the translation to English (from French, if you didn't know) is rather disappointing... :P This is basically translated to Fake Ginger Chicken. Why fake, you ask? Ah well, this dish has ginger as its main flavour... but with no ginger at all in its ingredients. Well, almost no ginger. Instead of using fresh ginger, Hadi used ginger powder instead. He wanted to name it muddy ginger chicken, actually, but that doesn't sound aesthetically appealing - plus its too close too his recent Sticky Ginger Chicken. (See how imaginative their dinners are???)

What you need:
3 chicken drumsticks, boneless and skinless, and chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 onions, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons ginger powder
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
2 tablespoons cornflour
Sprinkling turmeric
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
Water

What you do:

1. Combine the two oils together and heat in a wok. Add the onions and fry until slightly translucent and soft. Add oyster sauce and soy sauce, and mix well to combine. Fry for about a minute, then add chicken pieces and ginger powder.
2. Fry chicken pieces for about 2 minutes on high heat, then pour in enough water to make as much sauce as you would like. Add tomato sauce, turmeric, salt and sugar.
3. Mix cornflour with a bit of water and add into the wok. Mix well to combine.
4. Simmer until chicken pieces are tender.

We sprinkled a bit of parsley over the chicken, just to give it a splash of colour. Doesn't affect the taste in any way.

Anyway, I want to say that this is very similar to Hadi's Sticky Ginger Chicken, but to tell you the truth, its not :P This is mainly.... salty. I taste the ginger, of course, but the oyster and soy sauces take up a big part of it as well. (Hadi added the turmeric, because its one of his favorite ingredients, not because of any other particular reason. So we shall ignore that here....) I was the one who suggested the tomato sauce, but on second thought, that wouldn't go well with the ginger, so I would cut that out next time. Not that we tasted it at all. There was just way too much soy sauce and oyster sauce. A touch too salty, but still bearable :D

Hadi actually wanted to use chicken oil to fry the onions again, as with Sticky Ginger Chicken, but he burnt it too quickly and was not able to "extract" the oil. He ate the skins anyway... but he complained that they were tasteless... -_-; But then he added oyster sauce and was instantly happy. Some people are easily pleased :P

Quote of the day: Nouvelle cuisine, roughly translated, means I can't believe I just paid ninety-six dollars and I'm still hungry.

Thankfully, Hadi's dish was anything but :P