Stir-Fried Chicken With Mushrooms and Oyster Sauce Recipe (2024)

Chinese
Chicken Stir-Fry
Chicken Breast
Mushrooms
Wood Ear Mushrooms

This quick, simple stir-fry features fresh and dried mushrooms for maximum flavor and chicken that's been velveted—an easy technique that guarantees tender meat.

Shao Z.

Shao Zhi Zhong is a Chinese-born and Philadelphia-raised food writer and recipe developer who specializes in Chinese home cooking. She's also a web designer.

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Why It Works

Marinating the chicken strips in a mixture of cornstarch, egg white, wine, and seasonings—a process known as velveting—guarantees silky, tender meat.
Par-cooking the meat in a bath of boiling water with just a little oil is much easier for home cooks than the more traditional hot-oil-bath method, with equally good results.

If you've been reading ourwater-velveting series, then you already know that it's an excellent home-cook technique for ensuring that meats stay extremely tender in stir-fries. Unlike the more traditional method that involves cooking the meat in a hot-oil bath,water-velveted meatuses boiling water with just a little bit of oil added to it. Otherwise, the velveting process is exactly the same, with the meat first marinated in a mixture of cornstarch, egg white, and seasonings.

Today's recipe features strips of chicken stir-fried with a mixture of fresh and dried mushrooms, along with a sauce made from soy and oyster sauces. The crunchy bite of the rehydrated dried wood ear mushrooms, which you can find in most Asian markets, adds a nice texture to the dish. (They are great in other stir-fries as well and also in these deliciouspan-fried vegetable dumplings.) When using oyster sauce, a little goes a long way, so be careful not to pour out too much at once.

I start by marinating the chicken strips in the velveting mixture (a combination of cornstarch, egg white, rice wine, and seasonings) for 30 minutes.

Stir-Fried Chicken With Mushrooms and Oyster Sauce Recipe (3)

Then I get the water boiling in the wok, and drizzle a small amount of oil on top. The chicken takes a quick spin in the boiling water, just long enough to turn the exterior opaque while leaving it still raw inside, about 40 seconds. I drain it and give the chicken a good shake so that it isn't too wet the next time it goes into the wok for stir-frying.

Then I wipe out the wok, and stir-fry the fresh mushrooms in it first until they release their water.

Stir-Fried Chicken With Mushrooms and Oyster Sauce Recipe (4)

I follow that with the rehydrated wood ear mushrooms, and cook all the mushrooms until their excess water is gone and they're starting to brown. Once they're ready I transfer them to a plate.

Stir-Fried Chicken With Mushrooms and Oyster Sauce Recipe (5)

I add a little more oil to the wok, then stir-fry the chicken next. Working in batches like this with wok stir-fries is important since home burners don't put out enough heat to properly stir-fry all of the ingredients at once.

Then I add the mushrooms back in, toss them to combine, and add the sauce. I keep cooking, tossing and stirring, until the sauce thickens and coats the chicken and mushrooms. Then it's ready to serve.

July 2014

Recipe Details