Braised chicken with Chinese mushrooms

This braised chicken dish features dried Chinese hazel mushrooms, a prized wild mushroom native to northeastern China. With a delicate, slightly nutty flavour and a tender texture, they are popular in braised dishes, soups and stews. Find them at your local Chinese grocery near the shiitake mushroom section!

Credit: Jiwon Kim

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  20 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Series. Cooking. Rated PG.

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The Cook Up with Adam Liaw

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Ingredients

• 40 g dried hazel mushrooms
• 8 dried shiitake mushrooms
• ¼ cup (60 ml) vegetable oil
• 2 cm x 3 cm piece ginger, thinly sliced
• 4 spring onions, white part cut into 5 cm lengths, greens thinly sliced
• 2 star anise
• 1 piece cassia
• 3 dried red chillies
• 4 chicken thigh fillets, cut into 3 cm pieces
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• Salt, to season
• 2 cups (500 ml) water
• 60 g glass noodle vermicelli, soaked in cold water

Instructions

1. Prepare the mushrooms by soaking in two separate bowls of hot water.
2. Heat a large wok or saucepan over medium heat and add the oil. Add the ginger, white parts of the spring onions (reserve the green parts to serve!), star anise, cassia and chillies. Fry these aromatics for a few seconds, then add the chicken and fry for a minute or two. Add the soy sauces, oyster sauce and sugar (if using), then season with salt. Add 500 ml of water and bring to a simmer.
3. Remove the stalks from the shiitake mushrooms and cut them in half on an angle. Add all the mushrooms to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Taste and adjust seasoning, then add the glass noodles and simmer for 5 further minutes, until the mushrooms and chicken are tender and the noodles have absorbed some of the liquid. Remove from the heat and serve scattered with the spring onion greens.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.