Ingredients
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken pieces
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 tablespoons dark Japanese or Korean soy sauce
1 ounce ginger, peeled and grated
1 large garlic clove, peeled, crushed, and minced
1 scallion, root and green stems trimmed, and stalk minced
1 teaspoon sesame oil
black pepper
1 head of Boston or Romaine lettuce
Spicy Vinegar Dipping Sauce
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup dark Korean or Japanese soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 ounces fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 scallion, root and green stems trimmed, stalk minced
1 garlic clove, peeled, crushed, and minced
1 teaspoon sasame oil
wee tiny bit of ground red pepper (optional)
Preparation
For the chicken:
Cut the chicken into one-inch pieces (I used kitchen shears for this). Whisk all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl and pour over the chicken, tossing to make sure that all chicken makes contact with the marinade. Let it sit for about 30-40 minutes at room temperature.
Remove chicken from the marinade using a slotted spoon (a lot of the marinade will cling to the chicken, and that is fine) and cook the chicken in a lightly-oiled pan. I found that starting it over high heat until the exterior was well-browned and then reducing the heat to low/medium produced the best results - it allowed for nice searing initially, and the low heat carmelizes the sugar in the marinade.
Rinse off the lettuce leaves and heap them on a platter. Let everyone serve themselves with lettuce and chicken, tearing off pieces of lettuce and wrapping the chicken in it. Serve with spicy vinegar dipping sauce.
For the sauce:
Stir it all together. Make sure the sugar is mostly dissolved. That’s it.
