When I buy chicken, I usually buy organic, or at least free-range, chicken. The other day, some "regular" chicken was on sale at a very good price, so I bought it. I was planning to make chicken curry with it, and since Rose wasn't going to eat it, a little non-organic chicken seemed like not so bad an idea. (I'm mainly concerned about buying organic so the kids don't get things like extra anti-biotics in their diet.) Anyway, so I bought this chicken, stuck it in the fridge, and promptly forgot about it. Now, there have been times when I've bought the free range stuff and not used it right away, and after 3 or 4 days it starts to smell not so fresh. This inorganic chicken, on the other hand, sat around for six days, and it smelled just fine.

So I made the following "stir fry" (meaning something cooked in the wok — this was more of a stew...). This is in the style of some of the recipes in Henry Chung's Hunan Style Chinese Cookbook.

Chicken stir fry with zucchini

Cut up some boneless skinless chicken breast (maybe 3/4 pound), and put in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 1-2 tablespoons of white wine. Cut up 2-3 medium zucchini. Mince some garlic and ginger, and put on a small plate with maybe 1/2 a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Have 2 cups of chicken broth ready, with maybe 1 or 2 teaspoons of soy sauce. In this case I also put in a bit of tamarind paste, but not enough (it turns out) to actually taste it. Have a box of cornstarch open.

When all of that is ready, heat up the wok. Add some oil and brown the chicken; drain on paper towels. Clean out the wok if necessary and heat up again. Add a little oil, and then stir-fry the garlic, ginger, and hot pepper, for maybe 30 seconds. Then add the chicken and stir to combine. Add the zucchini, and stir some more: you want to get everything coated with the oil, garlic, ginger, and hot pepper. Then add the broth, bring to a boil, and stew for about 10 minutes, at which point the chicken should be cooked all the way through. Mix 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch with a little cold water; when well-mixed, add to the stew. Serve with rice.