Stir Frys : Soy Chicken and Mushroom (Ayam & Cendawan Goreng Kicap)

If you often cook, there will be some days when you have that big question mark behind your head, asking yourself, "What do I cook for today???". Sometimes, I just can't make up my mind, especially when I feel slightly lazy to make any tedious recipes that requires a lot of cleaning up after that. And sometimes, I just want to cook at home but have no idea what I want to eat... Or, hmm, sometimes, I got up late and missed /lazy to go to out and buy groceries!

To overcome all those situations, I know a simple stir fry dish would be very easy to come up with. Soy sauce is wonderful almost to any, if not all, Asian dishes. Meat or vegetarian, soy's a best friend. And so I have some chicken breast lying around in the freezer, as well as some mushrooms and some vegetables to clear up this week. I thought, a simple soy sauce stir fried with what I have would be good!

All you need is the soy sauce - I always have both dark and light ones. Dark one flavours up meaty stuffs, while light one, well I prefer it more for vegetables. SO if you don't always know what to cook but want something quick from home cooking, soy sauce is one of your best buddies next to salt & pepper. :-)

:: Soy Chicken and Mushroom Recipe ::

Serves 2
2 chicken breast, sliced about 1cm in thickness
1/2 green pepper (capsicum), sliced vertically
1 small carrot, sliced
6 button mushrooms, sliced to 3 each (I used canned ones as I didn't have fresh ones)
1/2 yellow onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce (I used Kicap Hitam Tamin)
1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup water
salt & pepper to taste

Fry onion and garlic until aromatic, throw in the chicken slices and stir fry until chicken is cooked. Pour water, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mushrooms, carrots, and capsicums.

Stir fry them until about a minute or two, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm with rice or yellow noodles.

Note: There's 2 versions of dark soy sauces. The very thick ones (the texture is like oyster sauce, only really black), and the dark but watery ones. If you use the thick one, about 1/2 tablespoon would suffice. If the watery one, you can adjust the amount to your liking, and it usually comes in 2 flavours: Masin (Salty) or Lemak Manis (Sweet) ones. I like both! Learn more about soy sauces here.