Chicken with Ginger and Wood ear mushroom

This is my first experience cooking with wood ear mushrooms .I have had them in dishes at restaurants and have always thought of them as some exotic hard to get my hands on kind of ingredient. These fungus get their name from their shape , they look like ears growing out of trees.

Wood Ear mushrooms are also believed to have medicinal benefits - thought by many to prevent heart disease and contain anticoagulant-type substances, acting like blood thinners that may prevent blood clots with an effect likened to that of aspirin.

The dried mushroom needs to be washed well and soaked in hot water for 30 minutes before cooking. Once soaked the wood ear mushroom swells up tremendously.The woody part that the mushroom uses to attach itself to the tree trunk needs to be cut off and the remaining part can be used in cooking.

If you like mushrooms you will probably like these too - When cooked they have an interesting jelly-like, springy yet soft and slightly crunchy texture. They are not strong in flavor like the other dried varieties of mushroom but they have a a very delicate forest aroma and a mild, earthy taste.

Ingredients:

1. Boneless chicken cut into thin strips - 1 cup
2. Ginger - 1 inch piece cu to into matchstick thin slivers(try to use tender ginger without much strings in it)
3. Onion - 1 sliced into thick pieces
4. Spring onion - 2 stalks cut at a diagonal
5. Green chillies - 4 cut at a diagonal
6. Black fungus /wood ear mushroom - 5 pieces soaked in hot water for 30 minutes and cut into pieces
7. Oil - 1 tbsp
8. Oyster sauce - 2 tsp
9. Sambal olek(spicy red chilly paste) - 1 tsp
10. Soy sauce - 2 tsp
11. Fermented black bean sauce - 1 heaped tsp

Method:

This is a quick dish so prep all your ingredients before you start cooking.
Mix together the Oyster sauce, Sambal olek, Soy sauce and fermented black bean sauce together and keep aside.
Heat a frying pan and add oil .
Add in the sliced ginger and stir fry for a minute
Add the wood ear mushroom, and half of the sliced onion , spring onion and green chillies and saute for a minute.
Add in the chicken pieces and 1/2 of the sauce mixture and stir fry on high heat until the chicken is cooked. Since we slice the chicken very thin it will cook very quickly( in 5 minutes)
Add in the rest of the Onions,spring onions and green chillies and the rest of the sauce into the chicken mixture and bring to a boil .Add in 1/4'th cup water and once it comes to a boil turn the flame off.
Serve with white rice or fried rice.