Chef critique
Thai Basil Chicken & Summer Zucchini
A flavorful and well-paced weeknight stir-fry with excellent ingredient tracking, but the recipe suffers from a major technical error with the cornstarch and is heavily oversalted.
Score: 6/10
Suggested fixes
- In Step 5, instruct the cook to whisk the water, soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, and cornstarch together in a small bowl to form a slurry before pouring it into the hot skillet.
- Reduce the kosher salt tossed with the chicken in Step 1 to 1/4 teaspoon, allowing the savory stir-fry sauce to provide the bulk of the seasoning without oversalting.
Issues
- high / cookability: Adding dry cornstarch directly to a hot skillet along with liquids in Step 5 will cause the cornstarch to clump instantly, ruining the texture of the sauce.
- medium / flavor: The dish is substantially oversalted. Pre-salting 12 ounces of chicken with 3/4 teaspoon of kosher salt while also using 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce in the sauce will result in a sodium-heavy, overly salty dish.
Strengths
- Perfectly accounts for all ingredient quantities throughout the instructions, including divided water, oil, and salt.
- Efficient prep instructions that utilize the chicken's resting time.
- Appropriate cooking time and temperature guidance for the chicken.