Monday, September 26, 2011

Lettuce Wraps

My family has a lettuce wrap recipe that we love, but honestly, it's A LOT of work. And so I don't really ever make it for just us. However, I've seen recipes for them out and about on the food blogs lately and it's gotten me craving them.
Tonight they were on the menu and I didn't have the time, ingredients, or energy for them. But they sounded SO GOOD! So I went on the hunt for a simpler recipe and found one in this recipe from food.com. I tweaked all of the preparation instructions but kept the ingredients exactly as they said.

Guess what? They were delicious and so so simple.


Little girl ate practically a billion.

I think this recipe might replace my current recipe (although delicious) based solely on the fact that it was equally delicious and far easier... plus it had a yummy sauce which we have never truly nailed before in other attempts.

So there you go.

I found this image on the internet somewhere...not precisely sure where.


Ingredients:
3 tablespoons oil

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cans water chestnuts, drained
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 teaspoon garlic, minced

iceberg lettuce leaves

Stir fry sauce:
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

Special sauce:
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon hot mustard
1 -2 teaspoon garlic and red chile paste

In a small bowl, combine all 3 stir fry sauce ingredients, stir, and set aside.
To make your special sauce I just combined all the ingredients in my blender and gave it a whirl, although you are more than welcome to just stir it up in a bowl. Feel free to adjust the amounts of chile paste and hot mustard according to your taste. Set in the fridge until you are ready to serve.
In a food processor, pulse the mushrooms until they are in pieces about the size of a pea. Follow this same step for the water chestnuts and then again for the onion.
In a large skillet, heat oil on high heat. Add all the minced veggies (inc. garlic) and cook for a couple minutes. Then remove them from the pan.
This next step sounds bizzare but I promise, if you've ever tried to do this by hand you will thank me. Cube your chicken breasts into 2 inch pieces and then pulse them in your food processor until very fine. It will essentially resemble ground chicken. Add a little more oil to your screaming hot skillet and stir fry the chicken until cooked through (this also just takes a few minutes)
Add your cooked veggies back in with the chicken and dump your stir fry sauce right on top.
To serve, scoop a couple tablespoons of this filling in lettuce leaves, add a little special sauce if you please, wrap these babies up like a taco, devour, and then pat yourself on the back for making something so sublimely delish and special in under 30 minutes.
Go you!

1 comment:

Brandon and Brittany said...

I know I'm the one who posted this recipe, but here is the deal: I just made these again and pretty much died from how delicious they were. I'd like to say I showed restraint and only ate about 15, but in truth it was probably a number closer to 30. Highlight of my night!!!