I was amazed when I first learned that the recipe called for milk and sherry. I mean eugh! Sherry? Up until the last couple of years, I think the only times I’d ever had sherry have been:
Mixed with a blue WKD alcopop as a teenager (I think it was called a Cheeky Vimto – quite nice actually, but anything that’s alcoholic, full of sugar and blue in colour is going to be nice when you’re first experimenting with after college pub crawls!). Actually, that could be Port. Falls into the same category though…In my Nanna’s trifle. Mmmm sherry trifle - sooo 80’s.
In the past couple of years I’ve found it’s a great staple for using in Chinese recipes like Sticky Chicken Stir Fry and Beef and Broccoli (I use sherry instead of rice wine sometimes). Mixing the sherry in the milk-based sauce does sound a little bizarre I know, but without it, the whole dish just tastes bland. The sherry seems to cause some kind of reaction that just lifts the whole flavour. You don’t even need much (in fact too much is horrible), but you do need it.
Ingredient swaps
You can swap out the shredded chicken breast for cooked thigh meat.Try adding peas or chopped green peppers to the dish (fry them up with the mushrooms, then add them back into the sauce with the mushrooms at the end).
How to scale up and scale down this recipe
You can halve or double this recipe using the same ingredient ratios.
Watch how to make it
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