Recipe: Chicken Chop with Mushroom Sauce

This is one of those dishes I grew up with. It is sort of standard fare in most pseudo-"Western" restaurants in Southeast Asia, alongside Spring Chicken and steak. Among the many Chinese dialects that settled in Malaya, the Hainanese (men, in particular) are especially known for their superior culinary skills. During the colonial period, the British hired Hainenese chefs to work in the kitchens of their exclusive country clubs and restaurants. You can still find the remnants of these colonial vestiges in Kuala Lumpur, for example, at the Coliseum restaurant, with its wine-stained white table cloths and smoke-filled cigar room, albeit the staff is much more multicultural these days.

I suppose you cannot really go wrong with fried chicken, especially one that is boneless and therefore easy to cut. I've been experimenting with this for several years now and last night, decided to bread it before deep-frying.

Serves two
Ingredients:
2 boneless chicken legs

Marinade:
Dash Worcestershire Sauce
Dash soy sauce
Dash Maggi seasoning
Dash pepper
Pinch of sugar

Marinade chicken for several hours or overnight if possible.

Breading:
Plain flour
1 egg, beaten lightly
1 cup of breadcrumbs, mixed together with 1 tbsp cornflour, 1 tsp baking soda, and a pinch of salt and pepper

Heat oil in deep fryer until hot. Drain chicken, and dust lightly with plain flour. Dip into egg and then breading. Deep-fry until crust is set and golden brown, about 7-10 minutes. To test if cooked, prick the chicken with a fork. The juices should be clear. Drain.

Mushroom sauce:
2 tbsp butter
1 small brown onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
5-7 button mushrooms, sliced
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 cup water or chicken stock

Seasoning
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
1/4 tsp dark soy sauce, for colour (optional)
1 tsp chicken granules
1/2 tsp sugar
Freshly cracked black pepper and salt

Cornstarch slurry:
2 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp water

In a skillet, melt butter. Add chopped onion and garlic and fry on low-medium heat until soft. Add in mushrooms, season lightly with salt and pepper and add thyme. When mushrooms have released their liquid, add stock/water, bay leaf and seasoning ingredients. Simmer for 5 minutes. If you like your sauce a little thicker, add cornstarch slurry, stir, and dish up.

Serve chicken chop with sauce.

p.s. You might have gathered by now that my brother has a rather healthy appetite. The dainty portions in the above picture were just to make everything look pretty. I woke up around midnight last night and he remarked sheepishly that it was all gone. :)

The real deal