Black Pepper Chicken & Award

Hello, everyone! I hope everyone had an amazing Valentine's day. Ours was great - we didn't do much this year because we all have been sick lately and just didn't really feel like doing anything really special. Don't worry. We still love each other, I promise. :) We've also been busy watching the Olympic games. I am a crazy fan of the Olympics events. I am Korean so my heart goes out to all the Korean athletes and I do cheer for Koreans before I cheer for Americans (I'm sorry!). But I do love all the American athletes except for a couple of them, maybe. But I'm such a big fan of Shaun White. He is amazing!! I can't wait to see his snowboarding games. Anyway, this blog isn't really about sports so I will stop here. :)

This weekend was also Chinese New Year (I call it Korean New Year) so I got to call my family and wish them lots of good luck this year. Did any of you celebrate the new year with delicious food? I think I want to, maybe next year, with different traditional Korean food. That'd be fun....

I am sure many of you enjoyed lots of great sweets over the weekend due to the Valentine's celebration. I made some cookies, too. I bet you all crave some flavorful homemade food. I do! :) Let me introduce you to this great dish that I tried a couple of days ago. I got the recipe over at Blog Chef - he has some of the greatest Americanized or authentic Chinese dishes on his blog. His black pepper chicken is easy and simple to make. The recipe doesn't call for unfamiliar ingredients which is nice. I didn't have any oyster sauce, though, so I used tiny bit of fish sauce instead. Although the fish sauce was a great addition, I'd buy some oyster sauce next time because it's got a different texture and flavor than fish sauce. I used coarse black pepper instead of fine so the taste of this was just excellent!

Black Pepper Chicken

For Bobby's original recipe, click HERE

Sook's Version:

Ingredients:

2 large chicken breasts, cut into bite sizes
4 tablespoons cornstarch (for dusting)
1 cup frozen peas
1 carrot, diced
oil (for frying) *I used about 2 tablespoons canola oil
1 green onion, chopped

Sauce:
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon coarse freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon sake or rice wine

Directions:

Mix all the sauce ingredients together in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

Dust the chicken bites in cornstarch until fully coated.

Fry the chicken in oil until golden brown and cooked through. Drain on paper towels.

Heat about 1 tablespoon oil in a wok or a large pan, and stir fry peas and carrots for about 2 minutes. Add the sauce mixture to the pan and heat until bubbling. Add the cooked chicken and stir until the chicken is coated in the sauce. Sprinkle green onions on top and serve with rice.

Changes I made: I used about 4 tablespoons of cornstarch instead of 6. I used about 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce instead of oyster sauce. Although fish sauce was a great substitute, I would definitely try the oyster sauce the next time I make this dish. I also used freshly ground coarse black pepper instead of fine one.

I'd like to thank Corine for this lovely award. This award is given to those who love blogging and making friend through blogging. I love all my regular readers and they all deserve this lovely award. Thank you for this award, Corine.