No, it’s not what you’d call a cowardly female heir to the throne.
Jokes aside, Princess chicken is a Chinese chicken dish made decadently delicious with mushrooms, red bell pepper, cashews, and five-spice powder.
FYI, five-spice powder is made of star anise, cloves, Chinese cinnamon, Szechuan peppercorns, and fennel seeds. The magical concoction is designed to cover all the taste bases—sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. And the best part is that you can make it home. But we’ll get to that later.
You might ask, why’s this dish called Princess chicken? Here’s a particularly interesting theory we dug up on the internet.
Long ago, in the mystical land of China, a beggar stole a chicken from a farmer.
(This is just a legend, so don’t think what we say is absolutely true!)
The farmer saw the thief and chased the vagrant all the way to a nearby riverbank. The quick-witted thief buried the chicken in the mud of the riverbank and scampered off.
Later that night, when he was certain the farmer had given up, he came back to his hidden stash. The beggar was starving. He impatiently lit a fire and dug up the chicken. It was caked in mud. But our hero, at the verge of collapse from hunger, just popped the chicken on the flame, mud and all. The fire hardened the clay and cooked the bird within. When the beggar cracked open the clay shell, legend has it that the feathers fell right off the flesh.
Our man knew he had struck gastronomical gold. He began selling this dish in his village. Before long, the Emperor himself came to visit this budding cook. His Highness was so impressed by the chicken that he added the dish to his Imperial menu back in his palace. But of course, you can’t have a dish on the menu that the people call “beggar’s chicken”. So from that day forth, all the cooks at the royal palace learned how to cook this new dish called “Emperor’s chicken”.
But our story isn’t over yet.
In the 1950s, Chinese American immigrants brought all kinds of mouth-watering recipes over to the Land of Opportunity. They didn’t just sit on the recipes, though—they experimented.
One of the subjects of these experiments was our old friend, Emperor chicken. And out of these experiments was born the Empress chicken. A few evolutions later, and here we are at the topic of this article. The pride and joy of any Chinese take-out menu, Princess chicken.
All this to say, Princess chicken isn’t a traditional Chinese dish. But at the same time, it’s not completely devoid of Chinese heritage. The dish borrows from its oriental roots and had made itself into a true modern-day dietary delight.
But that’s enough appetizers. Let’s head to the main course.
The Princess chicken recipe has two steps. First, you’ll have to marinate the chicken. Then comes the stir-frying portion. Let’s go over both in that order.
For the chicken marinade:
For the stir-fry:
By now, your kitchen must smell like an herb garden. Let’s move on to the next stage—making the Princess chicken.
First, the marinading.
Next, the stir-frying.
And that’s it! An oriental-themed chicken dish fit for a hungry Princess.
The beauty of the recipe is that you’re free to swap other veggies as you like. Got family members who aren’t fans of spice? No worries. You can make your own five-spice powder at home and just use less Szechuan peppercorn. This is a flexible recipe.
Try this bit of culinary Kung Fu in your kitchen. We guarantee your family will love the exotic combination of tastes. And as always, let us know in the comments how your dish turns out!
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