Chicken with Garlic Sauce 蒜泥白雞肉

My Japanese friend Ms 'guten appetite!' has a gift for making quick and delicious dishes. Having lived in and travelled to different countries, she is also adventurous with food and loves to experiment in her kitchen. She craves for spicy food when the weather turns hot. Yesterday she made pork with garlic sauce (云白肉 or 蒜泥白肉), a popular appetizer in chinese cuisine.

I have enjoyed this addictive appetizer many times in restaurants, but never attempted to make it. Seeing how simple her recipe is (read her blog post here), I decided to try it out for dinner today, using chicken instead of pork.

It turned out to be a great success. When my husband came back from work, he was 'wowed' by the look of it, saying it looks like a fancy dish. Later when he ate it he was 'wowed' again, this time by the taste. Indeed this dish not only looks very presentable, it tastes fabulous too, like something that took a lot more effort to prepare. So this definitely deserves to be shared and goes into my blog.

CHICKEN WITH GARLIC SAUCE RECIPE
Serves 4 as appetizer
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Ingredients

1/2 lb chicken tenderloins
3 baby cucumbers
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp soy bean paste (doubanjiang)
3 tbsp minced garlic
3 tbsp minced ginger
3 tbsp chopped scallion
2 tsp chili oil 
(to make chili oil, pour hot oil (just smoking) over dried chili flakes, and leave for at least an hour. I usually make a batch and use it over a few weeks.)

Steps:
Boil chicken tenderloins till just cooked (I check it by using chopsticks to tear one piece apart) - remove from pot immediately and set aside. Do not overcook or it will become tough and chewy. When cooled down, shred the chicken into smaller pieces.

Slice cucumber into fine slices. You can also use a fruit peeler to get very thin slices.

In a bowl, mix soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, soy bean paste, garlic, ginger and scallion.

Place some cucumber on center of plate and around the plate. Place shredded chicken on cucumber and pour sauce over it. Drizzle chili oil and serve at room temperature or cold.