Of Hobbits And Mushrooms

I know a hobbit. Yes, a real, live, breathing hobbit. Her name is Nadine, and she is a good friend of mine. She is a huge sucker for mushrooms, naturally, being a hobbit, and I must have some hobbit blood too considering my penchant for mushrooms and my hairy feet.

Anyhow, we have become mushroom buddies of sorts on Facebook, exchanging mushroom cooking tips, swapping ideas, and generally just making each other hungry by telling mushroom stories. I know, we're weird, but hey! We're Hobbits. Nuf said.

So, anyhow, I found out today that not only had my wife made a wonderful pot roast for me to take to work, she had also had the good sense to purchase chicken and mushrooms at the same time as the roast. My morning was made.

I cut off between a quarter and a third of a stick of butter and melted it into a small wok, so that there was enough butter floating in their to sort of do a deep fry. I then took the chicken, which was sliced into tenders about six to eight inches long, and put four tenders in the pan to fry. I immediately added soy sauce, enough to darken the butter into a sort of dark sauce. I then sprinkled a couple pinches of sugar on top of everything and put the lid on the wok.

The lid is important: it holds the moisture in and makes for really tender chicken. Every time I let the whole thing sit, on went the lid.

After I let the chicken fry for one to two minutes on that side, I sprinkled garlic powder on it and let it fry until I could see the chicken turning white. At that point, I used a fork to carefully turn over each tender individually.

This is the point at which the hobbitness came into play. I got out the pack of baby mushrooms and sliced about eight of them into big slices right into the wok. Then I added a touch more soy sauce and closed the wok, waiting a minute or two longer.

When the chicken was finished frying, and the mushrooms were tender but not slimy, I took the pan off the heat, forked each tender onto a plate individually, and did the same for the mushrooms (I did this mainly so that I was not drowning the chicken on the plate with butter sauce.)

Not to toot my own horn, but it tasted amazing. Hurrah for mushrooms and chicken.

This one is dedicated to my mushroom buddy Nadine. Cook on, friend and be not afraid to fry the fungus!