Steamed chicken and mushrooms with black bean sauce

I love this dish. Truly. I have a fish variant, and I love that even more. The fish recipe to follow. Let me tell you why this chicken and mushroom dish is awesome.

1. It’s simple to make

There’s nothing simpler, really, than spreading all the ingredients on a deep plate and lowering the plate into a steamer basket set over a pot of furiously boiling water. That’s the entire cooking process. Not even occasional stirring is required.

2. It’s low fat

For people who watch their fat intake, this should be a treat. No sauteeing, no frying, so there’s very little oil added. Just a drizzle of sesame seed oil, in fact, and that’s more for aroma than flavor.

In other words, what fat there is in the cooked dish will come only from the fat content of the ingredients. Chicken thigh fillets were used here, skinless but all excess fat left on. But that’s me because I love animal fat. If you’re not a fan, you can always trim and throw away the fat. Or, you can use a leaner cut of chicken like breast meat, and that brings me to the third reason why I love this dish so much.

3. It’s highly customizable

I mentioned I have a fish variant of this dish earlier, didn’t I? And that I love it better? Yes, and I use fish head. Moist flesh underneath the plate below the eyes, fatty skin, gelatinous eyes. Right, I know. Not everyone’s into fish head. But that’s just an example to illustrate customizability.

3.1. The main protein

The chicken can be replaced with fish, shrimps, mushrooms or any protein that’s good to cook in a steamer (cooking time will vary, of course). So that excludes anything that requires long and slow cooking. Tough cuts of meat are meant for stewing, not steaming. No beef brisket or pork ribs UNLESS they are already fully cooked and steaming is just a finishing touch for better flavor and aroma.

3.2. Herbs, spices and seasonings

What gives this dish such a rich flavor is the inclusion of ginger, scallions and a complex seasoning called black bean and garlic sauce. The latter is a mixture of minced garlic and ground fermented black beans. Very common in Chinese cooking. Now, that’s a combination that I like.

But the truth is, you can use other herbs, spices and seasonings. For example, you can give the dish a Thai flavor by using the lemongrass dressing in the Thai fried egg recipe or the marinade in the air fried lemongrass pork belly recipe. If you prefer Japanese, try the tare sauce in the yakitori recipe. In short, the possibilities are endless.

How to steam chicken and mushrooms with black bean sauce

It begins with marinating. Cut the chicken into thin slices, add sliced ginger, the lower portion of a bunch of scallions, the black bean and garlic sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, a tablespoon of cornstarch and drizzle of sesame seed oil. Mix well and keep in the fridge for at least an hour.

TIP: Take the chicken out of the fridge 15 minutes before cooking to allow to come to room temperature.

Take a couple of eryngii mushrooms and separate the stems from the caps. Slice the stems thinly and spread on the bottom of a heat-proof shallow plate. Halve or quarter the caps and mix with the chicken.

Fish out the slices of ginger and white portion of the scallions stalks that went into the marinade. Discard. Spread the chicken on top of the slices of mushroom stem. Top the chicken with julienned ginger and scallions. Sprinkle in toasted sesame seeds, if you like. Entirely optional.

Make sure that the water below the steamer basket is boiling briskly before you lower the plate intto the basket. Cover the steamer and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. And that’s all to making this lovely chicken and mushroom dish.