Imperial Chicken

Chicken Marinade
1 large chicken, cut up in bite-sized pieces
1-1/2 t sugar
1-2 t hot sauce, such as Tabasco
dash MSG
1-2 t sesame oil
3 t oyster sauce, enough to just cover chicken

Combine marinade ingredients and marinate chicken overnight if possible or 4 hours minimum.

Vegetables
2 large green peppers, chopped
anything else like bamboo shoots, water chestnuts
1 c peanuts (unsalted)

Prepare vegetables. Heat frying pan until very hot. Add oil. Stir-fry chicken until almost cooked. Quickly place in casserole dish and cover to keep warm. Add more oil to empty frying pan. Sautee vegetables until crisp tender. Add small amount of oyster sauce if pan becomes too dry. Add peanuts at the end. Add chicken to reheat. Serve over rice.

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For the vegetables, I've always used snow peas, but really you can use anything, as the recipe notes. I also use salt instead of MSG. This recipe is from a friend at UCSD (in the early '80s) with whom I was in a cooking co-op. One day a week, she cooked a dinner for us as well as her family, and another day a week, I cooked for them as well as my family. This recipe was one she cooked for us that I liked so much I asked for a copy. Her name was Barbara; that's all I remember.