Mystery Solved -killertomato

Every now and then I find a scrap of paper with some ingredients scribbled on it with no title or directions holding a place inside a novel or poking out from behind the washing machine. This particular doodle was found inside a shoebox full of similar fragments (organized chaos just works for me). I was noticing that we had rice, chicken, and carrots with which to fabricate our victuals and as I scrutinized this magical recipe, it began to shape up into just the thing to take chicken and rice from boring to fun. It looked like a recipe for sweet and sour sauce!

Here it is:

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp minced fresh ginger

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. distilled white vinegar

2 Tbsp tamari

1/2 tsp fish sauce

4 scallions

B had done his usual great job of finding natural chicken from a reputable, local company, which I had deboned yesterday and made cutlets with the breast. Those were sauteed and set aside while the rice got going. I only have brown rice right now, which is so much healthier and subsequently causes people to make faces at its mention. So that was going, and it takes a lot longer to absorb the water so I had put it on first along with the 5 sliced carrots boiling in water. After the chicken was sauteed, I left most of the fat in the pan and added the garlic and red pepper to cook briefly over medium heat. (I did not have any ginger and I think it would have added a pleasant zing to this sauce but they certainly don't stock that next to the faded Banner sausage cans down at the corner grocery.)

Next, I added the brown sugar, vinegar, fish sauce and some mushroom soy sauce we have, instead of tamari.

 (*You may have an even better substitute than what is called for...a big part of my approach is to get you to use what you already have rather than run to the store for ingredients or decide you can't make something.)

The sugar made me want to treat it like caramel so I amped up the temp to high and moved the pan around while it boiled and thickened. This is when I realized your rice and chicken should be plated so you can sauce it immediately. I still had to mash the carrots, so that wasn't going to happen and so I didn't let it thicken that much. I think that's better, because there was some left over that was saveable. I only had two scallions to slice and scatter over the top, and that was fine too.

The carrots were mashed and peppered well and given about a tablespoon of hot cream, which was really just whole milk we get from a local dairy that's super creamy. The baby would be sharing so I set that aside for her and put a little butter and salt on the grownup's carrots. What was left was put into a container for her to chow down on the next couple of nights.

Maybe in the future I'd do carrot croquettes with this, ever had those? They are formed and deep fried like salmon croquettes, really fun.