Last week kind of got away from me. I realized on Thursday evening that I'd forgotten to cancel my HelloFresh box for this week. I'm sort of cringing at the extra expense, but I suppose it's not that bad and it does save me from having to worry too much about meal planning this week.

Monday night was teriyaki chicken with bok choy and coconut rice. The chicken and bok choy were excellent. I'm not 100% sold on the coconut rice as the substrate though. The rice was nice, but it just felt somewhat flat and... a bit of a let-down next to the tasty teriyaki. I think it would've been improved by the addition of peas. And using a nice long-grain brown rice would've been my preference over the white basmati in this case. If I were going to do this again, I think I'd try adding some kaffir lime leaves and a couple handfulls of frozen peas to the rice during cooking. And maybe a few whole peppercorns as well. Either that, or switch it up completely and do a fried rice with salt, pepper, onion, garlic, Szechuan peppercorns, scallions, sesame oil, and maybe a few eggs. (I might toss a few peas into the fried rice as well. I really like peas with rice.)

Teriyaki Chicken

Slightly adapted from HelloFresh

Ingredients

Stir-Fry

• 450g Shanghai bok choy^{1, 2}
• 680g chicken tenders (or skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut in half horizontally then cut vertically into short strips)
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 c. soy sauce³
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp. grated ginger (or 1 Tbsp. ginger paste)
• 1 Tbsp. cornstarch (corn flour)
• 1/4 c. honey⁴
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 2 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil
• 50-60g roasted cashews, chopped

Rice

• 1 (160mL) can coconut milk
• 2 c. water
• 1 1/2 c. Basmati rice
• 4-5 kaffir lime leaves (optional)
• 6-8 whole black peppercorns (optional)
• 1 c. fresh or frozen peas (optional)

Directions

Stir-Fry

1. Wash the bok choy and separate the leafy bits from the stems.
2. Cut into 2-3cm chunks, keeping the celery-like stems separate from the spinach-y leaves. Set aside.
3. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Set aside.
4. Combine the soy sauce, ginger, garlic, cornstarch, honey, and water to make the sauce. Set aside.
5. Heat a large pan over medium-high heat.
6. Add oil to pan followed by chicken. Cook to internal temp of 165°F (74°C). Cook time will vary depending on thickness of pieces. For tenders, it should take 4-5 minutes.
7. Add bok choy stems to pan and cook for 1-2 minutes⁵
8. Add sauce and bok choy leaves and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Rice

1. Combine coconut milk with water and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to medium-low and add rice.
3. If using, stir in lime leaves and black peppercorns along with rice.
4. Cover and simmer for 12-14 minutes.
5. If peas are frozen, allow them to thaw while rice cooks.
6. When rice is done, fluff with fork and toss in peas.
7. Remove from heat, cover, and set aside for 5-10 minutes.

Assembly

1. Put some rice in a bowl and top with stir-fry.
2. Garnish with cashews.

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¹ I honestly felt like this recipe could've used a lot more greens. Personally, I wouldn't be afraid to double the vegetable quantity. If you do this, you might want to scale up the sauce slightly. ^Back
2 There are lots of different vegetables that will work here: bok choy, Shanghai bok choy, broccoli rabe, gai lan... Kale would probably work decently well too. If you're not looking to incorporate the veggies into the stir-fry itself, steamed broccoli makes a lovely side. ^Back
3 The soy sauce that came with the meal kit seemed a bit darker and more viscous than your typical light soy, but it wasn't anywhere near dark soy levels. If I were making this again, I think I'd try mixing 3 Tbsp. light soy with 1 Tbsp. dark soy. In a pinch, I think using all light soy would work fine though. ^Back
4 The recipe card says "3 Tbsp." for the honey, but we got two 30mL jars and I just put all of it in when making the sauce. I was happy with the results -- and the Kidlet loved it! -- so I'd probably just do it the same way again next time. That said, if you prefer a less sweet sauce, cut the honey back to 2 or 3 Tbsp. and see how it tastes. ^Back
5 HelloFresh has you cook the chicken in two batches and then remove it from the pan before cooking the bok choy. I don't like having to remove things from the pan once they go in and I have a very large pan, so I just did the chicken all at once and left it in the pan. It's probably technically overcooked, but it was tasty and didn't seem dry or anything, so I'm not too worried about it. ^Back