#27 Have you tried "velveting" chicken before cooking?

It's a Chinese prep technique that involves starch, oil, cooking wine and seasonings. Here's an illustration and recipe.

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 Shai 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. During that time, the starch seals in the juices, the alcohol tenderizes the meat, chicken or seafood, and the oil tranforms the texture of the protein.

How is the meat, chicken or seafood cooked? You need to precook protein that had been velveted. There are two options:

1. Drop the pieces one by one in water, boil until just done, scoop out, then spread on a rack to dry before adding to the dish you’re cooking.

2. Or lightly fry the chicken, meat or seafood, separating the pieces with a pair of chopsticks or kitchen tongs, then scoop them out and spread on a rack before adding to whatever dish you want to include it in.

Now, an illustration of how I use velveted chicken in a soup.

That’s my chicken, mushrooms and wakame soup. The mushrooms are a combination of dried shiitake and wood ears which had both been rehydrated. Wakame is a seaweed often sold dried. It’s the slippery greens you find in your miso soup when you eat at a Japanese restaurant.

I cut the fillets into bite-sized pieces and tossed them with a little salt and pepper. I dispersed cornstarch in cooking sake, stirred in sesame seed oil and poured the mixture over the chicken. Everything was tossed together to make sure that the surface of every piece of chicken was coated with the starch mixture. The chicken was transferred to a covered container and placed in the fridge where the velveting happened overnight.

Chicken bone broth was heated in a pot, the mushrooms were simmered until really tender, then the velveted chicken pieces were dropped in one by one. The simmering continued for another ten minutes.

I cut the dried wakame into shorter pieces then, with the heat off, I dropped the pieces into the pot. The pot was covered to allow the wakame to rehydrate and plump up in the hot broth.

Another ten minutes later and the soup was ready to be served.

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Velveted chicken, mushrooms and wakame soup

Ingredients (the links point to detailed posts in the blog):

Velveted chicken:

• 300 grams chicken thigh fillets, cut into bite-sized pieces

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

• 1/4 cup sake

• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

To complete the 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

Cooking process:

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.

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More recipes with velveted chicken:

Lemon honey chili garlic chicken - Velveted strips of chicken fillet are tossed with julienned vegetables and cooked in a sauce made with lemon juice, honey, garlic, chilies and kaffir lime leaves. Get the recipe.

Lemon honey chili garlic chicken - Velveted strips of chicken fillet are tossed with julienned vegetables and cooked in a sauce made with lemon juice, honey, garlic, chilies and kaffir lime leaves. Get the recipe.