Three-Cup Chicken - revised with a secret ingredient

image provided by Stephen Wilson

I recently wrote and provided a recipe for a fabulous Taiwanese dish called Three-Cup Chicken here. It really is a tasty and simple recipe to make, but I had forgotten something about recipes in general. Recipes are sometimes created to be used as a guide for the cook or chef. You can, and should, mix it up to see what additional flavours enhance - or might possibly destroy, a dish. The point is to experiment.

So with that in mind, I discovered a lovely Canadian addition to this recipe that I promise will seriously bump up the flavour in this dish.

Find out what it is below!

Three-Cup Chicken (revised)
Ingredients
2 cups of sesame oil
6 whole cloves garlic - peeled
2 inch piece of of ginger, peeled and sliced into thin, coin-sized pieces
3 cups of chicken thighs and legs, skinless, deboned and cut into bite sized pieces
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 cup light soya sauce
2 dried chilli peppers (optional)
and the secret, tasty and very Canadiana addition?
1/2 cup Maple Syrup (as a substitute for brown sugar)

Preparation Add 1 cup of oil to wok, heat on high and add garlic and ginger in oil to brown. Once browned, slide ginger and garlic up the sides of the wok. Add in chicken and cook until the meat is browned. Turn down the heat to medium, and add remaining oil and pepper flakes. Stir in soya, and maple syrup and dry chilli peppers. The maple syrup will provide a simple sweet taste to the dish, and will thicken the sauce. Total cooking time is twenty five minutes.

Serve with white rice and steamed broccoli or bok choy.

Recipe modification provided by Stephen Wilson