Spicy Taiwanese Chicken & Celery

Another great dish to cook if you have a bit of a glut of celery - this is from a reader recipe on Food 52: I’ve changed it slightly, mainly in upping the amount of chicken and sauce as, if I’m serving over a rice, I like it nice and saucy. As it turns out there wasn’t actually a massive amount of sauce even with me increasing those ingredients, but the rice was a welcome relief as my chilli seems to have been particularly hot and I didn’t deseed it.

If you can, use Chinese celery but I just used the usual stuff as I still had the inner stalks from the batch I’d bought for the braised over polenta dish I cooked recently, and that worked fine.

In fact I have to say this was delicious, surprisingly so as I thought it would be a bit boring. But beige as it may look (particularly with the brown rice), it really was rather good. I think this may be, in part, due to the rendered chicken fat.


Spicy Taiwanese Chicken & Celery
serves 2

200g (approx) inner celery sticks, trimmed, veins peeled off & sliced into 1 inch batons
3 skinless chicken thigh fillets (trimmed but fat reserved), sliced into thin pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red chilli, finely sliced (lengthways)
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry)
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp potato flour

Combine all the ingredients bar the celery, chilli and chicken fat, in a bowl. Set aside to marinate for 30 mins.

Heat a wok over high heat. Add the chicken fat and render for 3 minutes (or until no more fat renders). Discard the solids and pour the rendered fat into a bowl, leaving approximately 1 tbsp in the wok.

Add the chicken to the wok, leaving as much sauce behind in the bowl as you can and stirfry, stirring constantly until the meat is almost done. Remove the chicken and set aside on a plate.

Add another 2 tablespoons rendered fat to the wok and then add the celery. Saute for 2-3 mins then add the chillis and stir around for a minute. Add the chicken back in and the sauce still in the bowl then stir for another minute.

Serve immediately over rice.

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Braised Celery & Tomatoes with Chickpeas & Pancetta

I first saw a variation of this recipe on a site I like to visit, as I have mentioned before, Food52. Initially thinking of serving it as a side I read through the comments where someone stated that they had served a version as a main over polenta which sounded so delicious I couldn’t resist giving it a go, adding a little heat with a smidge of paprika.

The initial recipe is apparently adapted from one in Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking and is excellent if you have a glut of celery where you can benefit from a long slow cooking that produces a creamy and sweet, although quite robust taste rather than merely using a relatively small amount of celery as the background notes of a dish, as I normally do.

Lovely and satisfying I suspect this work really well with a good glass of red but I’m currently not drinking so, oh well. By the way, if you want this veggie, simply leave out the lardons and if you want a side rather than a main then you could leave out the chickpeas.


Braised Celery and Tomato with Chickpeas & Pancetta
serves 2

300g celery stalks, trimmed and cut diagonally into 2″ lengths
1½ tbsp olive oil
1 onion, very thinly sliced
45g lardons
80g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight & cooked according to package instructions
sml tin plum tomatoes, crushed by hand
¼ tsp paprika
1 garlic clove, crushed
salt & pepper

Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium heat and add the onion. Cook for 5-10 minutes until they have softened and are starting to colour and then add the lardons.

When the fat from the strips has rendered a little (about 10-15 minutes: turn the heat down if they are cooking too fast), add the garlic and paprika and stir for a minute or so until fragrant.

Add the tomatoes with their juices, chickpeas, celery, 100ml water and salt and pepper. Toss thoroughly to ensure everything is well mixed and the celery is coated.

Lower the heat to a simmer and cover the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 45 minutes then uncover, taste and carefully adjust the seasoning if necessary. Continue to simmer until the celery is completely tender and most of the liquid has cooked off, about another 15 minutes.

Serve over soft polenta in wide bowls.

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