Chicken and Summer Vegetables Stir-Fried with Cumin

Hi! It's Yoko, the food blogger.

It's really starting to feel like autumn. When I step outside, the breeze has lost its humidity and feels crisp!

Today's recipe uses chicken. It says "summer vegetables" in the name, but feel free to swap in whatever vegetables you like.

It's rare to have exactly the vegetables a recipe calls for at home anyway. Cooking should be easy and fun!

You may not own cumin yet, but it's a very handy spice that goes into all kinds of dishes, so I really hope you'll keep some on hand.

Chicken and Summer Vegetables Stir-Fried with Cumin

Ingredients (serves 2)

Directions

1. Trim the excess fat and sinew from the chicken, sprinkle it with a pinch of salt (not included in the amount above), and cut it into thin, bite-sized strips. Cut the bell pepper and zucchini into bite-sized pieces. Mince the garlic.

2. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the chicken skin-side down.

3. When the skin has browned, flip the chicken, add the bell pepper, zucchini, garlic and cumin, and stir-fry everything together. Add the salt, adjust the seasoning, and it's done.

Tips

You can cook the chicken whole first

If you want crispy chicken skin, cook the chicken separately!

Pour a little sake over the chicken and leave it for a few dozen minutes (this removes odors and tenderizes the meat), then cook it slowly skin-side down. You'll get a nice golden color and a crisp finish.

Stir-frying it with the vegetables lets their moisture take away the crispness, so serving it as a chicken saute with the vegetables on the side is also a good option.

I can't stand soft, squishy chicken skin, so I'm on team "cook it separately" (lol). The chicken in this photo was actually cooked separately too.

Cumin is a spice worth keeping on hand

Cumin looks like a larger version of sesame seeds and is often used in curries.

Just a little instantly gives a dish a curry-like flavor without changing the color of the ingredients, which is what makes it so sneaky and good.

It works with meat dishes, grilled vegetables, carottes rapees (French shredded carrot salad) and much more!

If the texture of the seeds bothers you, there is a powdered type too.

Recommended wine

I'm also sharing this recipe on Lekker Africa, which sells South African wine.

I contribute wine comments and recipes there, and the wine I recommend with this chicken and summer vegetable cumin stir-fry is the Kanonkop Kadette Pinotage.

It is made from Pinotage, a grape native to South Africa, and is a light red wine with plenty of fruit.

It pairs very well with fairly light dishes, so I think it goes nicely with Japanese food too.

I give a quick introduction to South African wine in the post below, so have a read if you're curious.

Have You Tried It Yet? What Makes South African Wine Such Great Value