Black Pepper Chicken with Vegetables

A lot of my friends tell me that they just love Chinese or Thai food. When eating out, I find that people tend to pick Chinese or Thai retaurants over others with the mistaken belief that such food is a better dietary option than fattening American food like hamburgers, pasta or pizza, or rich and creamy Indian curries. After all, many of the popular stir-fry dishes contain enticing colourful vegatables. I do not wholly disagree with them. But I do not think that Thai or Chinese food, the way it is cooked in restaurants, is healthy either.


And there are fat and unhealthy Chinese people just as there are fat and unhealthy American people.

Too often, Chinese and Thai dishes in restaurants contain copious amounts of oil, salt and additives like cornstarch and MSG. The average adult needs around 2,000 calories a day and 2,300 milligrams of salt, which is about one teaspoon of salt, according to government guidelines. A report showed that a plate of stir-fried greens has 900 calories and 2,200 milligrams of sodium. And eggplant in garlic sauce has 1,000 calories and 2,000 milligrams of sodium! Scary stuff indeed.

It has been years since I ate out at a Thai or Chinese place. Yes, seriously. Instead, I do my own cooking at home.

Here is a recipe I often do at home. Stir-frys are easy, quick and healthy, if you know how to do it right, the un-restaurant way.

Black Pepper Chicken with Vegetables

Cooking chicken dishes typically takes time for me - I have to clean the chicken, cutting away the unwanted fat, for example. So I usually cook chicken dishes over the weekend. But saving the breast meat to use in quick stir-frys for the weekdays is a huge time saver!

So last Sunday, I saved the breast meat from a whole chicken, and then cut it into small cubes. I then marinated the chicken cubes overnight in the refrigerator to use for dinner on Monday night.

Marinade:

2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons crushed ginger
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
1 teaspoon chicken curry powder

This week, I used the black pepper sauce from Trader Joes. The total calories from 2 tablespoons is 60, and the fat calories is 20. But when I have the time, I make my own black pepper sauce.

Ingredients:

Marinated chicken cubes
Black pepper sauce, 2 tablespoons
Olive oil
Red onions
Carrots, sliced thinly
Broccoli
Snow peas
Mushrooms
Black pepper, sprinkle.

Add the marinated chicken cubes into a wok with heated olive oil, or something similar. Stir-fry until chicken is half-cooked. Then add the red onions. Add some of the liquid from the remaining marinade. Stir-fry until chicken is almost cooked. Add the carrots, mushrooms and snow peas along with the black pepper sauce. Cook to desired level (I like my veges a little crunchy, so I don't cook them till they are too limp). Then add the broccoli and black pepper.

You will notice that I did not add any salt to this dish. That is because the marinade contains salt from the soy sauce, and the black pepper sauce also has salt.