I Tried Cooking 5 Asian Dishes at Once: The Costco Chicken Challenge

One 12-pound Costco chicken pack, five Asian dishes at once, ChatGPT as my chef, and 4 hours in the kitchen. Jjimdak won. Adobo almost broke me.

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My number one piece of advice: please do not follow my recipes.

I bought a 12-pound pack of air-chilled chicken thighs from Costco for $20. Then I decided to cook five different Asian dishes at the same time. I used ChatGPT for all the recipes and a few pre-packaged sauces. I started at 5:00 PM and finished at 9:00 PM.

Here is a breakdown of the chaos, ranked from least to most successful.

5. Chinese Scallion Ginger Chicken

The most confusing dish of the day.

ChatGPT told me to steam or poach the chicken for 15-20 minutes, heat oil until nearly smoking, then pour it over ginger and green onions to create a fragrant topping. I had so many questions. Do I shred the chicken first? How much oil? I also forgot to add salt entirely. I ended up pouring extra soy sauce over the top to recover it.

Vincent's rating: "Not bad. 5 or 6 out of 10."

4. Filipino Chicken Adobo

I used a pre-packaged Mama Sita's powder mix. Dissolved it in water, marinated the chicken, pan-fried it, then poured the sauce over.

When I tasted the sauce in the pan, I panicked. It was extremely sour and very salty. Nothing like the Adobo we eat at restaurants. Once it was plated and eaten with the chicken together, it balanced out much better. I should have added more water, but ChatGPT did not mention that.

3. Japanese Chicken Teriyaki

I made the sauce from scratch: soy sauce, rice vinegar, mirin, ginger, garlic, and sugar.

This one became a debate. Vincent wanted to cut the chicken into small pieces before cooking. I followed the AI instructions and cooked the large thighs whole.

His smaller pieces cooked more evenly. Mine had more flavor because I quietly added extra soy sauce and Korean sweet syrup to my pan partway through. This is what I am calling my "magic touch" method.

2. Malaysian Chicken Curry

Vincent suggested this one. We used a packet of Tean's Gourmet paste.

The instructions told me to add anywhere from 250ml to 500ml of water, which is an extremely unhelpful range. When it came time to taste, Vincent bit into a piece that was still raw in the middle. Back in the pan it went. After a bit more time, it came out juicy and genuinely delicious.

1. Korean Jjimdak

If I had ruined my own cultural food, there would have been a serious problem.

I was the most confident going in. I put the chicken, soy sauce base, onions, and carrots into my pressure cooker and skipped the traditional glass noodles this time. It came out perfectly. Tender meat, rich sauce, excellent with white rice.

This is the one I would make again without hesitation.

What I Learned

Do not trust ChatGPT to teach you how to cook five meals simultaneously.

You are welcome to try recreating this, but I strongly recommend finding an actual recipe video. Let me know in the comments what I should attempt to cook next.

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