Chicken and Asparagus in XO Sauce

The most common way of cooking asparagus is steamed or blanched then served with hollandaise sauce, for me it is sometimes boring but don’t get me wrong that classic recipe is not bad at all I just need a new way of cooking this wonderful vegetable.  I was thinking of giving it a flavourful sauce and a good way to enhance it is by using a spicy seafood sauce that is popular in Hong Kong, it is called the XO Sauce.

XO Sauce is quite new in terms of Chinese cuisine history; it was just recently developed in the 1980’s in Hong Kong.  This wonderful sauce is a concoction of dried seafood, ham, chilli, onions, garlic and oil.   Originally used for prestigious meals in gourmet restaurants but now it has been highly commercialized and became more affordable.

For this recipe we will be using XO Sauce to flavour a simple stir fried asparagus and chicken combination, then to ante up the flavour we will be using the smoked flavours of bacon.

Ingredients

20-25 asparagus spears, cut in half
250g chicken thighs, cubed
6 pcs bacon, chopped
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp XO sauce
3 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
2 tsp cornstarch
salt
peanut oil
sesame oil

Method

1. Marinate chicken pieces in sesame oil, salt and cornstarch for at least 15 minutes.
2. In a wok add peanut oil and fry bacon pieces until crisp.  Once cooked remove from wok then set aside.
3. Now add the chicken pieces cook until brown on all sides.  Remove from wok then set aside.
4. Now sauté garlic and ginger, then add the asparagus spears (place the thicker stalks first, ahead of 1 minute).  Stir fry for 3 minutes.
5. Mix together Chinese wine and XO sauce in a small bowl then pour into the wok.
6. Add the bacon pieces and chicken and give it a quick stir then serve.