Vietnamese Chicken with Mint – my best Asian dish to date?

If you don’t like to eat chicken breast cause they’re bland and tough, this recipe might change your mind. I got this recipe from Chef Wan’s book, “Simply Sedap!”. It’s one of my favourite recipe books! The instructions are clear and the flavours are always bang-on.

Anyway, I made slight changes in the recipe but they didn’t ruin the recipe so if you have Chef Wan’s book, you may find a slight disparity between what’s posted here and in his book.

This dish was so good that the BF claimed that it’s my best Asian dish to date. That allegation kind of threw me off a little (because I’m certain I’ve made Asian dishes that are comparably good!!!) but I had to agree with him that it was beautifully fragrant and every morsel was juicy, succulent and full of flavour.

# – Vietnamese chicken with mint.

Despite having 10 large red chillies in this dish, it was surprisingly mild! What can I say, the all the ingredients in this recipe really managed to balance one another out brilliantly!

The marinade, finely ground:

1 large onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 inch of ginger

1 tablespoon of nam pla (Thai fish sauce)

1 teaspoon of ground white pepper

The spice paste, finely ground:

10 large red chillies

1 tablespoon of shrimp paste (belacan)

4 cloves of garlic

1 inch of ginger

Other ingredients:

500 grams of chicken breast, cut into thin strips

3 lemon grass, sliced thinly

60 ml of cooking oil

Juice of 1 lime

Salt & sugar to taste

Handful of mint leaves

# – First, throw all the ingredients for marinade into a food processor and blitz till oblivion.

# – Now throw in the chicken slices into the marinade and mix till they’re evenly coated.

# – Cover and stick in the fridge for at least 2 hours. I left them overnight though :)

# – When ready to cook, chuck all the ingredients for spice paste into a food processor and blitz till oblivion, again.

# – Set the spice paste aside while you continue with other tasks.

# – Heat up the oil in a pan and then throw in the sliced lemongrass.

# – Next, throw in the spice paste and cook till fragrant. Cook for a little while more till the mixture looks like it’s excreting some oil.

# – Now, throw in the marinaded chicken slices.

# – When the chicken slices have cooked through, season with salt and sugar to your taste.

# – Then, stir in the lime juice.

# – Turn off the heat, throw in the mint leaves and stir.

# – Vietnamese chicken with mint, DONE!

As this is a Vietnamese recipe, I am convinced that the original version of this dish may actually contain pork…and that’s exactly what I’d do next hehehe.

So…my best Asian dish to date? After 10 months of cooking actively? Guess I have to cook more and practise more!