Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Stout Beer Chicken Stirfry

It's no secret that I love beer.  I also love chicken.  What can go wrong when you put the two together?  Nothing.  Nothing can go wrong.  That's what.   I'm not a huge stout beer fan,  but in this recipe it really adds something.  The dark colored beer adds a beautiful color to the chicken when its all seared and warm.  

I prepped this meal for two people,  making 8 total meals.   I served mine with brown rice, so it was true to the stirfry theme.  I eat A LOT OF RICE.  It's quick,  easy,  and gets the clean carb job done.  But,  feel free to experiment with this over a sweet potato.  And...let me know how delicious it is so I can make it too.

Stout Beer Chicken Stirfry
Prep: 20 minutes (roughly)
Cook:  1 hour,  with all chicken and veggies
Serves: 6-8


Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds of cleaned chicken breast, cut into chunks
2 red  peppers
2 green peppers
2 small white onions
1 bag frozen (steam in bag) broccoli (this is for shortcut and time purposes,  but fresh works too)
1 bag Cole Slaw Mix ( I used Dole)
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp sesame oil 
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 Stout Beer of choice
2 tsp red pepper flakes
3 tbsp of olive oil (rough estimate)
Salt and pepper pinches here and there, for seasoning

Directions:

1.  First, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2.  Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a large cast iron skillet,  or dutch oven,  over medium high heat until almost at the smoking point.

3.  While this is happening,  put your brown rice either in the rice cooker or begin cooking in a pot with a tight fitting lid according to package directions (I used two cups of dry rice for 8 servings)

4.  When the skillet or dutch oven is heated thoroughly,  salt and pepper the chicken (take it easy on the salt because of the soy sauce) and begin browning and searing in small batches--about 3 minutes on each side.  6 minutes total for each batch. Do small batches so the chicken has room to brown and keep all nice and crispy. 


5.  While this is happening,  begin chopping up ALL of your vegetables.  Keep them all separate,  as they all have different cooking times.  I know this sounds time intensive,  and it kind of is--but it will give you 8 total meals.  MEAL PREP HEAVEN.  What I did was--I chopped my peppers because I knew they had to be cooked next.  While they were cooking I chopped my onions,  etc.

6.  In a large food processor combine the following:  1 tbsp sesame oil, garlic cloves, stout beer,  honey,  soy sauce, and red pepper flakes.  Pulse until the garlic is tinyyyyy.

(This is the stout I used,  which has nice hints of chocolate and coffee)


7.  Throw sauce into already hot skillet or dutch oven and let boil for 1-2 minutes.  


8.  Add chicken and stir well to make sure it is all incorporated in that lovely chocolaty brown sauce.  

9.  While the chicken is cooking,  heat dashes of oil in a nonstick skillet over medium high heat.   Start frying up the vegetables in batches for 4-5 minutes total--remember you do not want this to be vegetable MUSH.  My order went like this:  Cole Slaw Mix (you just want it to have a nice crisp on it,  so like 3-5 minutes each side--I pressed mine down into the skillet like a pancake for 3 minutes a side),
Batches of peppers,  Batches of onions,  microwaves broccoli.  I kept just adding all of my vegetable deliciousness to a plate.

You could add mushrooms (which I LOVE),  but Zachy hates mushrooms.

10.  After 30 minutes,  remove chicken and stir making sure each piece is well incorporated with your sauce.  

11.  Add vegetables,  stir around,  and throw back in oven so they all meld together flavor wise for 5-10 minutes.

12.  Serve with rice :)



Here is me and Zachy's prep!  He gets 6 ounces of chicken and one cup of rice,  I get four ounces of chicken and a half a cup of rice.





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