Chicken Stir-Fry with Curry Leaves

I'm a fan of one-pot meal as it's easy to handle for noob cooks and it's sufficient for just the two of us at home. However, as my confidence in cooking developed, I grew ambitious and decided to tackle 3 dishes for dinner one day. Chicken stir-fry, french beans in a tomato curry and soup (ginger and curry leaf rasam - a popular South Indian soup). For the last 2 dishes, I closely followed recipes whilst the chicken stir-fry was really a "let's-mix-a-few-things-together-and-see-what-happens" dish. Hence, I was expecting the chicken to be just "so-so", but as it turned out, PJ enjoyed it the most out of the 3 dishes. Because there was no recipe, I'd tried to recall as much as what I did to reproduce the steps below.

Servings: 2-3
Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients

• 400g boneless, skinless chicken breast, pounded and cut into small chunks 
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 5-6 black peppercorns, crushed 
• Dash of ground white pepper 
• 1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder 
• 1/2 tsp cornflour (optional)
• 2 tbsp cooking oil 
• 3 stalks of curry leaves (around 25-30 leaves) 
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped 
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground coriander 
• 1 tsp paprika 
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce 
• Dash of light soy sauce 

Method 

1. Marinade chicken chunks with salt, black peppercorns, ground white pepper, Chinese five spice powder and cornflour. Leave in fridge for about 2-3 hours or overnight.  
2. Heat oil in frying pan or wok over medium heat. Fry the curry leaves until very fragrant. Remove and set aside around 15-20 leaves. 
3. To the remaining leaves in the pan, add onions and fry for about 1-2 minutes. Add garlic and fry for another minute. Add ground coriander and paprika powder. Stir through and cook for another 1-2 minutes. 
4. Add chicken and mix till chicken is well coated. Add dark soy sauce and season further with light soy sauce, according to your preference. Stir-fry until chicken is cooked. 
5. Serve garnished with the remaining curry leaves. 

Notes/Tips

• Equal size chunks: Through watching Master Chef Australia, I've come to realise the importance of cutting your meat to equal size chunks (as far as possible). This will help to ensure all the pieces are cooked around the same time. 
• Warm chicken to room temperature on countertop: I usually let my chicken sit on the counter for around an hour before cooking (never more than 2 hours as this will encourage bacteria growth). This helps the meat to cook more evenly and quickly. More really helpful tips on cooking moist, juicy and tender chicken can be found here. 
• Cornflour is optional, especially if you are on the slow carb diet. I only add it to make the meat smoother - something which my mother taught me.