Mom's Kitchen: Easy Chinese Salt & Pepper Chicken

A long-time favorite, Salt & Pepper (Jiao Yan) anything is a big hit with the family. It complements a simple bowl of rice or a plate of salad. The typical chicken preparation for this uses chicken wings or dark meat, but the kids and I are lazy about bones and prefer white to dark meat. Feel free to use what you like!

Prep Time: ~15 minutes
Cooking Time: ~15 minutes
Ingredients:

• 1 Chicken Breast (or chicken wings, dark meat, etc.)
• 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
• Cooking Oil (enough to submerge your chicken)
• Corn Starch (enough to coat your chicken)
• Dried Chili Pepper
• Salt and White Pepper
• Sprinkle of Chinese Five-Spice Powder
• Green Onions (optional)
• Fresh Jalapeno (optional)

Directions:

• Coat your chicken using a mixture of corn starch with dashes of salt and pepper. Coat evenly.

• Heat up your oil. Once hot, toss in your chicken to fry. Do not stir! Wait until it looks like the batter has solidified, otherwise your coating will fall off.
• Once evenly fried (~5 min), let chicken cool a little bit on a paper towel. After a few minutes of cooling, place it back in the oil for a quick flash fry. This ensures it will stay crisp throughout the meal.

• In a pan, heat up a little oil. Saute garlic and green onions. Toss in your seasonings and chicken. Stir well to coat.

Enjoy!
I'm thinking about uploading cooking videos on YouTube - is that preferable to pictures / text?