HelloFresh Five Spiced Chicken
with Bok Choi
What are these mysterious 5 spices that so often sneak their way into Chinese cooking? The exact formula can vary from place to place but usually it’s a concoction of star anise, cloves, Chinese cinnamon, fennel seeds and a bit of Sichuan pepper. This dish was actually inspired by a trip to Australia where they tend to use all sorts of Asian flavours in their cooking. We teamed it up super fresh bok choi, ginger and garlic for a quick burst of flavours!
Boxes and ingredients are packed in facilities that handles Peanut, Nuts, Sesame, Fish, Crustaceans, Milk, Egg, Mustard, Celery, Soya, Gluten and Sulphites. Due to the war in Ukraine, it has been necessary to substitute sunflower oil with rapeseed oil in some products without a label change. The FSA have advised that allergic reactions to rapeseed oil are rare.
Ingredients
2
Soy Sauce
(Contains Cereals containing gluten, Soya)
1
Chinese Rice Vinegar
(Contains Sulphites)
1
Caster Sugar
½
Ginger
1
Garlic Clove
3
Chicken Thighs
175
Brown Basmati Rice
2
Pak Choi
½
Red Chilli
2
Spring Onion
½
Chinese Five Spice
Nutritional information
Utensils
Instructions
Boil a pot of water with ½ tsp of salt for your rice. Wash the rice in a sieve under running water for a minute. Rapidly boil the rice on high heat for 25 mins then drain and put back in the pan. Cover with a tea towel and leave off the heat until the chicken is cooked.
While the rice cooks chop your chicken into bite sized pieces. Chop the base from the bok choy and chop the bok choy widthways into 4. Very finely chop the spring onions into discs, separating the white and green parts. Slice the chilli in half and very thinly slice widthways.
Peel the garlic, crush it under your knife then dice finely. Using the edge of a spoon peel the skin from the ginger. Now either grate the ginger or dice it super finely.
Mix the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sugar and vinegar in a bowl. Stir in the 5 spices. Add as much of the red chilli as you dare. Tip this mixture over the chicken and allow to marinade for as long as your hunger allows.
Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan on medium-high heat. Once the oil is really hot add in the chicken. Cook for around 8 mins until you have a nice caramelised outside. The chicken is cooked when it is no longer pink in the middle.
Every 3 mins put 1 tbsp of water into the pan and this will ‘de-glaze’ the pan. That’s chef talk for stripping off the little burnt bits that’ll give your sauce lots of extra taste! Once the chicken is done you want there to be a little bit of sauce to sink into the rice.
When the chicken is just cooked add in the whites of the spring onions. 30 seconds later add in the bok choi. Stir fry for 2 mins until the bok choi has wilted.
Serve with your rice and sprinkle over the greens of the spring onions. Bonza! (that’s Australian for great!)
