Chicken and champignon mushroom in oyster sauce

I found this chicken mushroom recipe from a Chinese cook book I bought during my trip to Indonesia in 2010. The book is called "Variety of menu for 30 days - Chinese food" (variasi menu 30 hari - masakan Cina) authored by Mary Winata, and published by an Indonesian publisher. My mom has one chicken mushroom recipe that she always cooked. I wanted to try out something new, so I decided to test Mary's chicken mushroom recipe. I did cook some things differently from the original recipe and I've written the reason why below. The dish tasted delicious, however, I'm a bigger fan of my mom's recipe; I will cook my mom's recipe in the future. This recipe will feed four people.

Ingredients

A kilo of diced chicken - The original recipe used chicken pieces that are on the bone (chicken wings, drum sticks, etc.). My husband prefers to eat chicken fillets so I replaced the chicken pieces with diced chicken.

A can of champignon mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic - roughly chop

1 small brown onion - roughly chop

1 small red shallot - roughly chop

Ginger (1 cm thickness) - thinly slice

One spring onion - cut diagonally to 5mm pieces

Soy sauce

Oyster sauce
The original recipe uses mushroom sauce, which I had to leave out because I couldn't find it at the Supermarket. I would recommend using mushroom sauce if you can find it as it will bring out the mushroom flavour more.

A soup bowl of liquid chicken stock  

Salt

White pepper

Sugar

Oil 

Sesame Oil

Cooking method

Heat a splash of oil in a wok (medium heat), cook garlic, brown onion, red shallot and ginger, until fragrant. Add chicken to the wok, followed by a good pinch of salt, pepper, and a tea spoon of sugar. Mix well and cook chicken until the colour of the meat thoroughly change. 

In a small bowl, mix a good splash of oyster sauce, sesame oil, and soy sauce; stir well and add the sauce to the wok. Immediately add the champignon mushroom and liquid chicken stock. Mix all ingredients in the wok and let it boil. 

Let the liquid evaporate until there is only a shallow rim left. Taste the sauce. Ensure that the sauce tastes good and balanced. If it's not sweet enough, add more sugar, if it's not flavoursome enough, add more oyster sauce, and if it's not salty enough add more soy sauce. It is always better to add a small amount of flavouring carefully rather than adding too much which will ruin the balance. Don't stress if you happen to add too much of one flavouring, add a little bit of water and fix the balance of taste. 

Let the liquid evaporate further until the sauce become thick. The author used corn flour to help thicken the sauce, but I found that the liquid already thicken well in time without needing the corn flour.

Place chicken, mushrooms and a generous amount of the sauce on a serving plate. To finish the presentation, sprinkle spring onion on top. The spring onion, other than being a decorative element of this dish, also compliments the taste of the dish with it's crunchy, sweet and fresh character.

Serve dish with steamed rice and chinese vegetables.