Stir-Fried Chicken and Bok Choy

Please be very careful with sautéeing as described thus: “...preheat the pan for at least five minutes before adding the oil. There should be a forbidding amount of smoke when the ingredients hit the pan.” When the marinated chicken hit the super-hot preheated pan, the water in the marinade immediately evaporated and atomized the oil, which in turn caught fire and created a 3 feet high fireball for about 8-10 seconds. Nothing happened but still scary.

I usually use baby bok choy. Cut the very bottom off, separate the stems. Rinse. Then more or less cut them in half, separating the whiter bottoms from the greener leaves. You can then chop the white part or slice them and stack the leaves and give them a whack or two with your knife. Put the white parts in the pan first as they are thicker and will take a bit longer to cook.

I cooked it with the marinade the 1st time and ended up with a blackened mess in the bottom of the pan from the sugar. The 2nd time, I didn't bother marinating the chicken at all; I just added all the sauce at once, post-veggies. It turned out great this way & honestly, I preferred doing that to the alternative, which would've been marinating the chicken for 20 min, then patting dry to avoid a burned-sugar mess. Marinating didn't make that much difference in flavor, imo.

I use broccoli instead of bok choy, and it works very well. I also increase the amount of ginger to 2-3 tablespoons.

Having said that: this is a delicious dish, but it does *not* take any 30 minutes to make. More like double that or even a little more, taking everything into account. Don't get me wrong -- I love it, but it's not quick. And I've made it a bunch of times, so I'm pretty efficient with it now, and I even I usually use pre-cut broccoli.

The first time I made this, I had a terrible problem with the sugar burning in the bottom of the pan. The second time I made it, I didn't marinate the chicken at all. Instead, I stir-fried it plain and just kept all the marinade for the "add marinade" part of the stir-frying process. It worked great and actually gave me a little more sauce, which I liked.

This was great. My family hates bok choy (which I grow in my garden) and they all ate this up. I cut the bok choy across into thin strips. I doubled the sauce as I used extra chicken (three boneless breasts cut up) and used the full amount to marinate and then the second amount in the stir fry. Will definitely make again.

Add something crunchy, such as cashews

Used yellow onions because I didn't have leeks. The flavors worked great with each other. Love the kick from the chili flakes, great balance of sweetness and acidity. WATCH OUT when you put in the chicken into your extremely hot pan if you're on a gas stove. As you know, the water in the marinade will instantly evaporate which causes some of the oil to go up and into the flames, causing a fire. No big deal if it happens, just pull the pan away from the flame and let the marinade evaporate.

I used chicken breasts instead of thighs and kale instead of leeks because they were on hand. Still delish.

This was rather dry. Needs tweaking. Also too salty.. must use low salt soy sauce.

I added scallions and cubed eggplant then topped it with chopped cashews and toasted sesame seeds. Terrific and versatile dish.

Made sauce per recipe. Used baby bok choy, added bean sprouts and some diced water chestnuts, used Sriracha instead of chili flakes, and served it over brown rice. Delicious!

This recipe was delicious. Made a few substitutions based on flavor preference. Eliminated leeks. Added onions and scallions. Added sesame seed to the chicken. I also doubled the chili flakes, as we like it with a kick. The bok choy almost melted in our mouths as we ate. Absolutely delectable. The chopping and cooking took me about 35 min (tip- slice your chicken thin for faster cooking!). But the chicken had to marinate for 20 min. Overall, dinner in under 1 hour. Can't wait to make again!

Another winner, Melissa! I doubled the amount of sauce, used boneless breasts, then stir fried red pepper slivers, carrot rounds, bean sprouts and sliced bok choy. I followed the last steps of the recipe as written, but also added some unsalted peanuts. I seasoned with sricha and left out the extra salt at the end of the recipe (there's so much in the soy sauce, even low sodium!)

Delicious, incredibly versatile, and relatively fast (~30 minutes of prep and ~15 minutes of cooking). Per some other comments, I skipped the marinating and threw all of the sauce in the pan after the veggies, and this worked well - I liked the amount of sauce we had. Based on what I had in the fridge, I used 1 leek, a large carrot, and 3 scallions, instead of the 2 leeks. I also added some chopped cilantro after I turned off the heat, inspired by another stir fry recipe on this site.