My new menu item VI - College years nostalgia I

My second year in graduate school I lived in a 400 sq ft condo, top floor corner with a balcony. It wasn't the finest accommodation in the world but it was a very quiet homey little place. About a couple weeks after I moved in, there was a mini explosion, a short circuit of some sort I guess, that burnt a hole on the electric range. For the next 9 months, I was stuck with a little plug in electric range from Walgreens, limiting my cooking abilities... who am I kidding, I made dinner every night just the same.

As a college student, cooking for oneself, I had a strategy. Simplicity was the key, ingredients had to be versatile (so I could stock up when they were on sale), and quick to fix up. One quintessential Chinese dish I made so often that year was black beans green pepper chicken au rice.

Tonight I revisited this dish that I haven't made in a long time. The ingredients are very simple: salted black beans, green bell peppers, and chicken cubes seasoned with soy sauce and pepper.



Just pour everything into a fry pan heated with cooking oil and stir. Served with rice, and hot tea.

The chicken can be breasts, or when drumlets are on sale I'll boil them up a bit to make them easier to debone, but that's an extra step. Green bell peppers can be substituted with onions, but that's trickier: they need to be added half way at the right moment, you don't want your onion over or under cooked in this dish. And, resist garlic temptation.

Brought back a lot of memories.