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Chicken and Black Bean Sauce with Stir-fried Rice and Wilted Bok Choi

Heat up the wok for a delicious dinner for two with stir-fried strips of chicken, spicy black bean sauce, greens and egg-fried rice.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 187 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 2
Prep1 hr
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, soy, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Slice the chicken breasts thinly. Toss with half the light soy sauce, half the Shaoxing rice wine and half the cornflour. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.

  2. Peel and finely chop the ginger. Chop the garlic and slice the chillies. Soak the black beans in a bowl of water for 10 minutes, drain and roughly mash. Trim the spring onions and separate the whites from the greens. Chop the coriander. Quarter the bok choi lengthwise.

  3. Heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a wok over high heat. Stir-fry the chicken for about 5 minutes until golden and cooked through to 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part. Remove from the wok.

  4. Add a little more oil to the wok. Stir-fry the ginger, garlic, chillies, spring onion whites and black beans for 1 minute. Add the remaining Shaoxing, the chicken stock, caster sugar and remaining soy sauce and bring to a simmer.

  5. Mix the remaining cornflour with a splash of water, stir into the sauce and simmer 1 minute until thickened. Return the chicken and toss for 2 minutes. Keep warm.

  6. Place the bok choi in a steamer over a pan of boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes until wilted. Drizzle with a little of the toasted sesame oil.

  7. Heat the remaining vegetable oil in a clean wok over high heat. Add the cooked rice, break it up and stir-fry for 3 minutes. Push aside, scramble the egg until set, then mix through the rice with the spring onion greens and a little soy sauce.

  8. Serve the fried rice and bok choi topped with the chicken and black bean sauce, garnished with chopped coriander.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + rice winetop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sesame + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Sesame + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Chicken + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,839 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Chicken + sesametop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together939 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, sauce, rice wine, sesame, ginger, beans, sugar):

  1. Garlicthe original
  2. Corianderabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Cinnamonabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Cuminabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sauce, rice wine, sesame, ginger, beans, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).