Quick Mu Shu

Author: Justin
Serves 2-4

1 lb. chicken tenders	About 1 dozen shiitake mushrooms
Chopped ginger (about a 2" knob)	1 heaping Tbl. chopped garlic
1 orange	1 red bell pepper
3 scallions, sliced (greens and whites)	3 Tbl. hoisin sauce
Mu shu wrappers (flour tortillas will suffice)

Remove and discard the shiitake stems; slice the caps thin. Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, but they don't have to be tiny. Cut the bell pepper into smallish pieces.

Put a Tbl or two of peanut oil into a nonstick skillet, and heat until the oil begins to smoke a bit. Saute half the chicken until done and a bit browned. Remove, put in a little more oil, and repeat with the rest of the chicken. Remove from skillet.

Add a bit more oil, and saute the mushrooms until a little browned. Remove and put with the chicken.

Add a bit more oil, and saute the ginger and garlic briefly, until fragrant. Add the bell pepper and stir. Scrape about half the zest of the orange into the skillet, using Microplane grater. Add the chicken and mushrooms, and reheat. Add the scallions. Add the hoisin sauce, and stir to mix thoroughly. Remove from heat, squeeze 1/4 of the orange juice in, and stir in the juice.

Serve immediately, with wrappers, and extra hoisin on the side if needed.

Notes and Variations

Quite good, and fairly quick and easy. First try used the zest of 1/2 orange and 2 Tbl. hoisin; we agreed that while this wasn't terrible, the orange flavor was too pronounced, instead of simply an influence on the hoisin. Otherwise, came out excellent. Don't be afraid of using too many mushrooms -- this proportion starts out as more mushroom than chicken by volume, but the mushrooms cook way down.

Flour tortillas are definitely an inferior solution: they're a bit thicker and doughier than real wrappers. But they did decently in a pinch, and are easier to find.

The original show was a simpler version of this: basically just adding all of the ingredients to the skillet, one at a time, in the order shown. (My ATK influence is showing here.) The original show was doing low-carb recipes, so called for serving in lettuce leaves instead of flour wrappers; that probably works well.

Sources

Adapted from Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals. The original was a bit less finicky, and didn't include any quantities, but this is substantially the same.