Kung Fu Chicken

Kung Fu Chicken…. sounds like an extreme dish to me. Well, when rapper Coolio writes a cookbook, you should expect it to be extreme. That’s right children of the 90s, Coolio wrote a cookbook. I didn’t see it coming, but apparently he’s been a foodie for quite sometime now.

When I saw that a fellow foodie received an email for food bloggers to review this cookbook, I’ll admit, at first I wasn’t very interested. I’d like to remember Coolio as a “Gangsta’s Paradise” type of guy. However, when I mentioned it to my husband, he seemed anxious to get his hand on this book and try a recipe. So, I emailed the publisher and requested to review the book.

Upon receiving it, my husband and I skimmed through the book, laughing at how he wrote the book. It’s almost like he’s talking to you, without censors, and spices are measured in “dime bags” and “nickel bags” vs. teaspoons and tablespoons. There are recipes like Backyard Grass Salad, Bro-ghetti, Pimp my Shrimp and Jarez Make-It-Rain Peanut Butter Cookies.

So, how did we choose Kung Fu Chicken? Easy…we were looking for a simple, weeknight meal that was healthy and well, this fit the bill.

Upon tasting it, it really wasn’t anything Asian as we expected. This dish, however, had a striking similarity to a Louisiana dish called Sauce Piquant. We had no problem with that though, since this dish was rather tasty!

Kung Fu Chicken
Source: Cookin’ with Coolio

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 medium white onion
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 2-3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 “dime bag” (or tbsp.) salt
• 1 “dime bag” (or tbsp.) pepper
• 15 oz. can tomato sauce
• 14 oz. crushed tomatoes
• 1 tbsp. asian sweet chili sauce
• 3-4 tbsp. soy sauce

Directions (straight from the book, to get an idea of how he wrote it):

1. Take your chicken and chop suey it up into quarter-size pieces.
2. Kung Fu grip your knife and chop up your half of a white onion.
3. Get out your garlic. If you already got it minced, you’re ready to go.
4. Warm up a large skillet over medium heat and toss in your olive oil, onion and garlic. Sneak it into that pan like a ninja with a plan. Saute that up for 4-5 minutes.
5. Throw in your chopped chicken, along with salt and pepper to taste, and let that cook for 8-10 more minutes.
6. Crack your cans of tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes and pour them into your large skillet, covering up all that chickeny-garlicky onion-ness.
7. Add in the red chili sauce and the soy sauce, and stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. Cover the skillet between stirs.
8. Let all that cook up and coagulate together for 10-15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste.
9. Take it all out and serve it up with some brown or white rice.

The Skinny – per serving, serves 4 (not including rice)

Calories: 212.5
Fat: 11.0 g
Fiber: 5.0 g