Bentoism

Taiwanese crispy chicken (left bento), stir-fried oyster mushrooms (right bento-top compartment), and spinach oshitashi (right bento-bottom compartment)





Every so often, I go into withdrawals and have to have Shihlin's XXL Crispy Chicken. If every dieter has to have an achilles' heel, this is definitely mine. I was introduced to Taiwanese crispy chicken back in 2003 or so, while I was still living in Singapore. Every few weeks, I would get myself a bag of that freshly fried crispy bite-sized chicken chunks coated with a blend of spices and enjoy it while walking through the mall. Now that I'm about 8500 miles away (calculated via this nifty site), my once-healthy Taiwanese crispy chicken dependency has deteriorated to a pretty sad state-I get it when I go back to Singapore (always the first thing I eat after landing), or when I fry up my own here in Sacramento.

Tonight, I didn't have the time to deep fry a batch of marinated chicken cutlets nor the will to deal with the kitchen clean-up after. So I took short-cuts with Foster Farms Fully Cooked Breaded Chicken Breast Patties.

Quickie Taiwanese Crispy Chicken Fix
2 Breaded Chicken Breast Patties (I used Foster Farms')
1/2 tsp five-spice powder
1/2 tsp paprika powder
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp salt

Nuke frozen patties for 2 minutes in microwave until defrosted.

Use a cookie cutter to cut out bite-size pieces at this point if you want it to look pretty. I saved the scraps for dinner. =) Otherwise, you can skip this step.

Pan-fried chicken patties in a shallow layer of oil until crisp. Remove and let rest on a paper towel.

If you fried your chicken patty whole, now is the time to cut it up into bite-sized pieces. There are two ways to what comes next, the addition of spices.

Method A - Mix the different spices together in a bowl. Add 1 tsp into a brown paper bag with the chicken pieces from 1 patty. Close and shake bag vigorously for a few seconds. Enjoy.

Method B - Sprinkle the different spices directly from their bottles onto the cooked chicken pieces. This method does not yield an even distribution of spices like Method A does, but less spices are used and there is one less bowl to wash later, and this method was what I used tonight. I'm feeling lazy, remember?

Of course, if you are a Taiwanese Crispy Chicken purist, the frozen chicken patties won't taste as good as the deep-fried ones. However, with a preparation time of 5 minutes and minimal clean-up, this comes pretty close to taking care of my addiction, at least until the next time I fly home.

If you have the time and want to cook the Taiwanese Crispy Chicken from scratch, check out My Taiwanese Crispy Chicken Addiction, Part II for the recipe.