BAPyessir6
Senior Cook
Recently went to a Vietnamese restaurant and was surprised by the strong (and I mean STRONG) floral lemongrass taste/aroma in their lemongrass chicken. When I took it home and started to dissect the flavors, I only saw a small amount of minced lemongrass in the dish itself. So I fried up my own lemongrass chicken, but I'm struggling to figure out how they made it so floral. I've used 3 stalks lemongrass in about a 1 person portion, but I can't figure out why my lemongrass chicken isn't as lemongrass-y. Should I be using a certain wok technique to make it more floral, or tr stir frying the lemongrass longer? (I marinate the chicken overnight in minced lemongrass then fry up about 1 tsp. of lemongrass in my wok before adding the chicken itself). Does anyone have any tips that I could attempt? Do you think restaurants could use additional lemon . . . extract or fresh lemon juice? (I didn't see any lemon zest in the dish.). Or is there a lemongrass extract that could be used in cooking? My lemongrass is tiny (the diameter of maybe a chopstick when I bring it home.) Is more mature (larger diameter) lemongrass more potent/floral?