![Skillet Chicken With Black Beans, Rice and Chiles](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/10/11/dining/ml-chicken-and-black-beans/merlin_160015383_4bd71410-dc4f-487f-92e6-c664995b50e0-mediumThreeByTwo440.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
Chicken Manchurian
![Chicken Manchurian](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/03/10/multimedia/zs-chicken-manchurian-hqkz/zs-chicken-manchurian-hqkz-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1egg
- 4tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1teaspoon garlic paste or freshly grated garlic
- 1teaspoon black pepper
- Fine sea salt
- 1½pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into ¾-inch cubes
- ⅓cup vegetable oil
- 3whole dried dundicut chiles or bird’s-eye chiles
- ½cup ketchup
- ¼cup chile-garlic sauce
- 2tablespoons light soy sauce (or regular soy sauce)
- 1cup chicken stock (optional)
- 1bell pepper, halved, seeded and cut into ¾-inch pieces
- 3spring onions or 1 medium scallion, trimmed and thinly sliced
- Cooked white rice or fried rice, for serving
Preparation
- Step 1
Velvet the chicken: In a medium bowl, whisk the egg. Continue whisking and gradually add 4 tablespoons of cornstarch until there are no lumps. Stir in garlic, black pepper and ½ teaspoon salt. Add the chicken pieces and stir until well coated. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.
- Step 2
In a large wok or deep, high-sided skillet, heat oil on medium for 45 seconds. Add chicken (in batches, if necessary to avoid crowding) and cook until it starts turning white, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip the pieces and continue cooking until the chicken starts to turn golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove chicken and set aside.
- Step 3
Add dried chiles and cook on medium for about 1 minute, stirring occasionally.
- Step 4
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together ketchup, chile-garlic sauce, soy sauce, ½ teaspoon salt and, if using, chicken stock (if not using chicken stock, stir in 1 cup water). Add to mixture in pan along with bell pepper and stir to combine.
- Step 5
Separately, mix the remaining 1 teaspoon cornstarch with ¼ cup water until smooth. Stir it into the wok and simmer until the sauce thickens and starts to turn glossy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add chicken and stir to combine. Top with spring onions. Serve with rice.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
You can substitute anything you like. You won't be shot for disobeying the recipe :-) Examples of substitutions include red pepper flakes, gochugaru, dried Kashmir peppers, Aleppo peppers, minced serrano or jalapeno peppers. gochujang, sambal oelek, cayenne pepper, etc. It's up to what you have at home, what you like and your heat tolerance.
I have been velveting chicken and lean pork for stir fries for 25 years, and I have never seen a velveting recipe include the yolk of the egg, or such a mountain of corn starch. Is there a reason specific to this dish? A normal recipe for velveting is, Per pound of meat: 2 tsp Corn Starch,1/2 tsp Baking Soda,1 lg egg white 4 tsp Shaoxing Wine, Soy Sauce, Sake or Broth Whisk ingredients together, add meat and toss Marinate at least 1/2 hour
use crushed tomatoes instead of catsup
I used gochujang instead of the garlic-chili, omitted the dried peppers, and added a tablespoon of honey. Let the chicken simmer for a minute or so in the sauce to make sure it was fully cooked. Delicious.
Huy Fong makes a good, widely available, chili-garlic sauce.
Dundicut peppers are hot. Very. I get them from Penny's. And bird's-eye chilis are equally hot. Tone it down if the heat is too much.
If the peppers are too hot/too spicy for you, consider using (dry) Kashmiri Chili Peppers, which are less hot/spicy though not completely so. They are available on line, even from Amazon. The ground version, also not too hot, is powder that confers a beautiful red color to your food,
I found the ketchup overpowering! I threw in all sorts of vinegar, extra soy, lime and cilantro to try to cover the ketchup flavor. Not a hit for me.
This is so good and easy. I used boneless, skinless thighs and subbed gochujang for the chili sauce, didn’t use any dried chilis, and eyeballed the ketchup. Served with brown rice and stir fried broccoli. It’s a keeper/ repeater.
This was delicious!
Reading the recipe, it almost seemed like a "quickie" home version of Kung Pao, without the peanuts. So I think I'll try it at home and add peanuts, some rice wine and kung pao vegetables (scallions, snow peas, mushrooms, etc) It sounds grand, thanks for the recipe!
Wonderful recipie, tastes great. Ketchup: who knew this would make the sauce work? I learned a lot making this that I can adapt to a range of dishes. Was not specified, but I let the green peppers and sauce simmer rapidly for a good 5 or 7 minutes to cook the peppers, before adding starch and cooked chicken. As to the hotness, I knew from tasting the bottled Lee chili-garlic mix that I would not add the peppers, but that’s me. Hot enough to reach for a ginger beer with rum.
I went with boneless chicken thigh because I'm not a fan of chicken breast in these recipes. Next time I do this, I want to try it on a meatless day and use blanched cauliflower in place of the chicken.
Whether it is available in your supermarket depends on the customers, Where I live there are a lot of Asian immigrants and you can find the sauce in the supermarket. Two common brands are Huy Fong and Lee Kim Kee, which you can find online, e.g. at Amazon. The sauce is easy to make at home. Recipes are readily available by Googling.
Very tasty. Substituted sirracha as no chili-garlic sauce at the store,, chile de arbol for the bird's eye chilies. Wiped out the pan before cooking the chillies and red pepper, and sauteed the red pepper for a couple of minutes. Definitely a keeper!
The flavor of this is so incredible. The sauce did not reduce enough and I think that’s because I used the wok that I have, which does not have a large enough bottom. I should’ve used the largest sauté pan. for chili garlic sauce I used 3/4 Sriracha 1/4 chili garlic sauce and it was too garlicky. It could’ve been that I added too much garlic, I pressed the garlic and I didn’t measure it exactly.
Surely it should be 4 teaspoons of cornstarch in step 1? Or one tablespoon?
Probably too much sugar in the ketchup and gaughang but amazing. Added green pepper, red pepper, whites of scallions, and summer squash. Could add more veggies.
This was relatively easy and delicious!
Used dried ancho chilis as I had them on hand. This is an easy recipe and everyone loved it--will become a regular go-to dinner:)
Replaced the chilis with dry Kashmiri chilis - tasted excellent. Perfect balance of heat, sweetness, and black pepper flavor. The family loved it. Did need more oil than the 1/3 cup because I needed to cook in two batches - would recommend 1/4 cup oil per batch (heat to smoking before adding chicken).
So yummy! I had never heard of "velveting chicken" before but that's why I love NYT Cooking. I added snow peas and broccoli with the sauce before tossing it all with the chicken. This one works just fine when you factor in the 30 minutes needed for the chicken to rest. If you have the rest of the ingredients prepped, it all goes quite smoothly. The last step of adding the corn starch mixed in the water makes a really nice, smooth and light sauce. For sure we will make this again.
We love this! Make it with yellow onion, button mushrooms and broccoli. No bell pepper.
I prepared this as written but with fewer chilis (my partner doesn't tolerate the heat). Velveting the chicken is a game-changer and I'm adding it to my quiver of techniques. The result was okay if somewhat bland. It's tricky to incorporate umami (savory) without overdoing the salt. Definitely use low-salt stock. Next time, I'll add some finely diced onion, tomato paste (add at step 3 and cook until turning dark), and fish stock to the sauce.
Like others, I made this with what was on hand. Gochujang in place of the chili-garlic sauce. dried Guajillo chilis rather than the hotter ones specified. I added more peppers, a red onion and a couple ribs of celery. The result was really delicious, just the right level of spicy-not-lethal. The nice velveting method was perfect and very easy. I'd definitely do this one again.
This recipe is delicious! I used a serano pepper instead of the chiles and it was the perfect amount of spice, I would absolutely make this again.
Really good and easy with shelf staples - velveting the chicken is simple, quick and really makes the dish. Also used Sriracha Ketchup, yum! So happy I tried this recipe and technique, in regular rotation
This is the best. We make it often.
We liked this the first time but found it quite sweet. The second time I substituted half of the catsup with tomato paste and it is a real winner.
So I just made this tonight but didn’t have. Chili garlic paste so I used gochujang instead and I didn’t have dried chili flakes so I used gochugaru instesd and I’ve got to say it came out flipping excellent.
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