Rich savory sauce with balanced sweetness, tender chicken, and crunchy cucumber—perfect over rice.
Some dishes require tedious steps and long cooking times to bring out their flavor; others need special ingredients to truly shine. But there is a type of dish that is naturally beautiful and, with just a little preparation, can win everyone over—the sauce-stir-fried dish. Finding the brand of sauce that suits your taste best takes some experimentation, but no matter which sauce you use, to bring out its aroma, you must stir-fry it slowly over medium-low heat.
Ingredients
Main Ingredients
Chicken breast 250 g (about 9 oz)
Chicken breast can be a bit dry, so you can also use more tender chicken thigh meat instead.
Additional Ingredients
cucumber, to taste
Marinade
1 g salt
5 g (about 1 teaspoon) Shaoxing wine
Other Seasonings
30 g sweet bean paste (tianmianjiang)
3 g (about 1 teaspoon) Shaoxing wine
10 g (about 2 teaspoons) white sugar
3 g ginger
a little egg white and cornstarch each
Instructions
Instructions
Preparation
Step 1: Cut the chicken breast into 1 cm (about 1/2 inch) cubes. Mix with the marinade ingredients, then stir in the egg white until well combined, and finally add the cornstarch and mix thoroughly (Image 2).
*Although chicken breast has high water content, it also loses a surprising amount of moisture when heated—if not properly marinated, the meat becomes dry and tough while releasing too much liquid, ruining the dish. So first seal it with egg white, then coat with starch. Use a generous amount of starch; the chicken pieces should feel quite sticky on the surface.
Cut the cucumber lengthwise into quarters, remove the seeds, then dice into 1 cm cubes. Finely mince the ginger (see Figure 3).
*The cucumber seeds contain too much moisture and will release water when stir-fried, making the texture less crisp, so remove them.
*Cucumbers can be eaten raw and have a crisp texture, so just blanch them briefly in boiling water before stir-frying—no need to parboil them separately.
Marinate the chicken cubes with egg white and cornstarch to keep them tender.
③ Pour plenty of oil into the wok and heat to 350°F (about 175°C). Add the diced chicken and slide it through the oil over medium heat for about 20 seconds, then remove. At this point, the chicken should be about 90% cooked (Image 4).
*Control the oil temperature carefully—if it's too high, the chicken cubes will clump together; if too low, the starch coating will fall off. The ideal temperature is around 350°F (medium heat). After adding the chicken to the oil, do not stir immediately; wait a few seconds before turning them, allowing the starch to form a good protective layer.
Stir-fry the sauce until fragrant and bubbling.
④ Pour out the oil from the wok, leaving only a thin layer, then add the sweet bean paste and stir-fry slowly over medium-low heat (Image 5). Once the paste begins to form clumps, add sugar and minced ginger (Image 6), then pour in some Shaoxing wine and continue stir-frying until fragrant.
When stir-frying the sauce, be patient and keep the heat low; don't skimp on the oil. At first, the sauce will form small clumps—don't worry, just keep stirring without stopping. Adding ginger enhances the aroma, while yellow wine removes any astringency and makes the sauce smooth. Continue stir-frying until the raw taste is completely gone, the rich aroma of the sauce emerges, and it turns glossy and shiny—then it's ready.
*Sweet bean paste is quite salty, so there's no need to add extra salt.
Stir-fry the chicken cubes and cucumber together until the chicken is cooked through and the cucumber is slightly tender.
⑤ When the sauce becomes smooth and glossy, add the diced chicken and cucumber to the wok (Image 7). Stir-fry over high heat for about 10 seconds, then remove from the wok (Image 8).
*Finally, stir-fry the chicken and cucumber over high heat just a few times to coat them evenly with the sauce, then remove from the wok—do not overcook or the sauce will burn.
Flexible application
The savory sauce-based stir-fry style known as "jiang bao" is a crowd-pleaser for all ages, making it versatile enough to use with other tender or crunchy ingredients, such as diced duck or squid, as long as the main ingredient doesn't have an overpowering odor.
Cooking Notes
Although sweet bean sauce has a sweet flavor, it is also quite salty, and the taste varies greatly by brand—some are very salty and dark in color, so adding just a little too much while stir-frying can make the finished dish overly dark and salty, resulting in a poor outcome; others have a balanced flavor and a yellowish color, producing a good sauce taste with the right balance of saltiness and sweetness, along with a nice color, which is ideal. If you encounter a variety with good flavor but too light a color, you can add a small amount of soy sauce during cooking to deepen the color. Another approach is to use yellow soybean paste for stir-frying, which is saltier but has a richer sauce flavor—use less paste and more white sugar. Feel free to adjust based on your preference, and through continuous practice, you will find the sauce that works best for you.