5 Spice Stir-Fry Chicken Soup

5 Spice Stir-Fry Chicken Soup It’s time to move beyond in just salt and pepper. I’m Jeffrey Saad and I'm going to introduce you to one of my favorites—5 Spice. 5 Spice is just that it’s five spices. It’s got cinnamon and cloves which gives me memories of like sweet cinnamon toast from childhood but then I get a little bit of heat because it’s got Szechuan peppercorns. A lot of times it will have white pepper or black pepper. What really gives it its unique flavor is star anise. 5 Spice has become my new favorite spice because it’s like the new version of barbecue rub and I can't wait to show you how easy this is to use and I think you will have the same philosophy as I do which is women doubt 5 Spice. Because of 5 Spice’s versatile flavor, it works in so many recipes but one of my favorites is a twist on a traditional chicken soup. We’re going to take this to China and back in five minutes. It’s a Chinese Chicken stir fry soup and it’s really easy. So, the first thing we’re going to do is get the oil hot. I’m using peanut oil—two tablespoons. We’re going to take our whole garlic cloves and our whole chili and dump those in. We’re leaving them whole because we want to blacken them and get the flavor infused into the oil and then we’re going to take them out. If you wanted to use a couple of shakes of chilly flakes, if you don’t have the whole chilies, that will be okay too but then you will leave it in. It will be a little spicier. I’m going to season the chicken so we’ve got salt and then our 5 Spice. You want to be liberal with this 5 Spice. It creates this beautiful coating that's going to become nice and crispy once it hits that peanut oil. Whenever I discover a new spice, I always use it and try it in everything until my wife finally says, “Stop. I'm sick of it.” She still hasn’t said that with 5 Spice. We’re going to take that out. You use cubes of chicken or thigh meat so it’s going to stay nice and moist even though we've got a really high heat going. Now, it won't take long to cook because these pieces are small. So, just as they start to get a nice color we’re going to add our bok choy. It looks like a lot but don’t worry. It’s immediately going to reduce down as it hits that heat. We’re going to add our one carrot which we shredded and stir this just a couple of times just to wilt the greens, soften the carrots and get those flavors mixed. Now that we’ve got this sauted, we’re going to add our sweet rice wine—1/4 cup. We’re going to add a quarter cup of low sodium soy sauce. Now at this point, I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, “I want to dump this over a plate of rice.” We've got a great stir fried dish right here and we’re done if you wanted to go there. We’re going to add our chicken stock now. We got three cups. We’re going from stir fry to soup. We only want it to boil for a minute two because we don’t want to overcook the chicken. We just want to bring the flavors together. It’s incredible how I can already taste it. This is the ultimate example of sweet heat. A touch of cilantro—that’s what is all about. The chicken still has a sweet coating. You get a little bitterness from the bok choy, crunchy carrot. The best thing about this dish is in five minutes, with the 5 Spice, you're getting two dishes—an extraordinary stir fry or an incredible soup that will warm your soul. Enjoy.