Gluten Free Chicken Stir-fry

I just love stir-fry with lots of veggies. This is basically the Teriyaki Chicken Stir-fry recipe with just a few changes. My family liked the changes. I'm repeating the recipe here, with the additions colored.

3/4 cup Tamari soy sauce (check label for gluten free)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 TBS seasoned rice wine vinegar
1-2 tsp. garlic chili sauce
2 garlic cloves
1 inch piece peeled, grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breast
2-3 TBS pure cornstarch
8 oz. sliced shitake mushrooms (I usually buy the white ones, but realized the price on an 8 oz. package of white mushrooms is $1.99 while the shitake were $3.99/pound so basically the same price. The shitake taste much better IMO)
2-3 small zucchini, julienned
4 green onions, sliced
1/2 onion, cut in slivers (I like onions, but always use the mild, sweet ones)
1 red pepper, julienned
1/4 cup diagonally sliced celery
a handful of chinese snow peas
1/2 cup peanuts I used planters cocktail peanuts and rinsed the salt off before adding them.
1 can sliced waterchestnuts I didn't have these.
2 TBS olive oil
2 TBS butter
Rice
Salt
Pepper

Mix sauce ingredients in a small bowl: Tamari, sugar, grated ginger, red chili sauce, vinegar, & 1 clove minced garlic. If you want it spicy, add more red chili sauce.

Cut chicken into bite size pieces. Place in a ziploc bag with cornstarch. Shake to coat chicken. In a large skillet or wok, heat olive oil. Stir-fry chicken over medium high heat until no longer pink inside and light golden brown. Fry in batches if necessary, so as not to crowd the pan. Lightly salt and pepper.

Remove chicken from pan and set aside. Add butter to skillet, add remaining garlic and vegetables, except the snowpeas. Stir-fry until crisp tender.

Remove vegetables (you can add them to the dish of chicken.) Pour sauce into pan and heat. Place chicken, vegetables, peanuts and snowpeas into the sauce, stirring to coat all. If desired, 2 tsp. of cornstarch mixed into 1 TBS water can be added to thicken sauce. Serve over steamed rice.




Note: You can skip the cornstarch coating on the chicken if you want. But my family likes the coated orange chicken from Panda Express. But since it isn't gluten free, coating the chicken before frying gives it more of an authentic eating-out taste.