The prep time is 10 minutes, the cook time is 15 minutes, but velveting takes overnight. It's worth the waiting though because you end up with better than restaurant-quality food.
Connie’s notes
If you’re a fan of Chinese food (I am!) and you frequent Chinese restaurants, you might have noticed that the texture of the meat, chicken and seafood in stir fries and even in soups is different. More moist, more tender and with a luxurious surface reminiscent of… well, velvet. And you might have wondered why the meat or chicken or seafood in your homecooked dishes doesn’t have the same charactertistics.
It’s not necessarily because your stir frying skills are wanting. You might have stir frying skills at par with professional cooks but you probably skipped “velveting” the meat or chicken or seafood.
Velveting means soaking the small pieces of meat, chicken or seafood in a mixture of starch, liquids and oil prior to cooking. Often, the main liquid is cooking wine (like Shao Xing, sake or mirin) and may include seasonings like soy sauce. Some say beaten egg white is an essential velveting ingredient; others say it isn’t.
Personally, I use egg white when velveting a pound or more of meat, chicken or seafood. That amount of meat requires a generous amount of liquid and the egg white forms part of the liquid. But, when velveting a smaller amount of meat, chicken or seafood, I skip the egg white so that I can better control the amount of liquid.
How long does the meat, chicken or seafood pieces need to soak in the starch solution? Depending on their size and thickness, it can be an hour or it can be overnight. I prefer overnight for meat and chicken. During that time, the starch seals in the juices, the alcohol tenderizes the meat / chicken, and the oil tranforms the texture of the protein.
Ingredients
Chicken
- 300 grams chicken thigh fillets (10.5 oz) cut into bite-sized pieces
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground pepper
- ¼ cup sake
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Soup
- 4 to 6 cups chicken bone broth
- 3 shiitake rehydrated if using dried, sliced thinly
- 3 to 4 wood ears rehydrated if using dried, trimmed and sliced thinly
- dried wakame as much or as little as you like, cut into short pieces
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, toss the chicken with the salt and pepper.
- In a small bowl, mix together the sake and starch, then stir in the sesame oil. Pour the mixture over the chicken and mix well.
- Transfer the chicken to a covered container and keep in the fridge overnight.
- Heat the chicken bone broth in a pot, bring to the boil, drop in the mushrooms, turn down the heat, cover the pot and simmer the mushrooms for about ten minutes.
- Turn up the heat to high, drop in the chicken pieces one at a time, lower the heat, cover the pot and simmer for ten minutes.
- Turn off the heat.
- Drop in the wakame, cover the pot and leave for another ten minutes.
- Serve the soup immediately.
