Chicken, Sweetcorn & ‘Noodle’ Soup

On 24th February 2016, This was Dinner…

Not wanting to waste some fresh(ish) pasta that was sitting in the fridge from the seafood lasagne on Friday I decided to cut them into strips and serve them in this soup.

You could poach the chicken ahead to save time. Save the poaching liquid.

Get set…

• Finely slice a green chilli
• Cut some fresh lasagne sheets into strips
• Slice some spring onions
• Drain a can of sweetcorn
• Mix a little cornflour with water
• Lightly beat an egg
• Get chicken breast, curry powder, shaoxing wine, brown sugar, a chicken stock pot & salt ready.

Throw it together…

Bring about a litre of water to the boil and add the chicken. Cook for 15-18 minutes depending on the size of your chicken. Remove and set aside.

Add the stock pot to the poaching liquid along with the sweetcorn, bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes.

Add some curry powder, the shaoxing wine, sugar and a teaspoon of stock. Stir well and bring back to the boil then simmer for five minutes.

Add the lasagne strips to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes.

Slice or shred the chicken then add to the pan with the chilli, cornflour and half of the spring onions. Cook for a couple more minutes.

Slowly drizzle in the beaten egg, stirring constantly. By the time you’ve sorted your bowls out it is ready to serve.

Serve it up…

Just carefully spoon into a bowl and garnish with the remaining spring onions.

 

Hoisin Pork Noodle Soup

On 2nd September 2015, This was Dinner...

As I’m playing catch-up I was confused having a photo of a meal from the 2nd as I went out for lunch with my Mum and Sister. I should feel guilty that I had two meals but there’s nothing too fatty here though and I did only have a ‘fishfinger sandwich’ at a place called Bill’s in Sheffield. A special mention has to go to our burgers and  at Bungalows & Bears yesterday. I’ll be seeing you again.

I’m working my way around the Donna Hay book. Did you see Sunday Brunch on the 13th? I thought Rimmer and Ms Hay were quite flirty!

Preparing:

• Grate some ginger
• Prepare some chicken stock
• Slice some spring onions lengthways
• Cut a pak choi into leaves
• Finely slice a red chilli
• Get hoisin sauce, Chinese rice wine, Chinese five spice powder & udon noodles ready

Making:

Mix the pork, ginger & hoisin together to form small balls. Pop in the fridge to chill.

Pop the stock into a pan and add the rice wine and the five spice powder. Bring up to a high heat then add the pork balls. Simmer until cooked through then remove from the pan.

Add the noodles and simmer for a couple of minutes.

Add the pak choi for a minute then return the pork to the pan. Cook for a couple more minutes then serve topped with the spring onions and the chilli.

Crispy Pork with Hot & Sour Rhubarb

On 17th May 2015, This was Dinner…

One of Jamie’s revelations this one! I wanted to use rhubarb in something as it’s in season and found this one. So delicious and the pork was just phenomenal.

Preparing:

• Remove the rind (and bones) from a piece of pork belly and cut into cubes
• Finely slice some spring onions
• Finely slice a red chilli & roughly chop a couple more
• Roughly chop some coriander
• Roughly chop some rhubarb
• Peel & roughly chop some ginger
• Peel a few garlic cloves
• Preheat the oven to 160ºc (fan)
• Get egg noodles, limes, runny honey, soy sauce, five spice powder, oil & seasoning ready

Making:

Whizz up the rhubarb, honey, soy sauce, garlic, the two roughly chopped chillis, five spice powder and ginger in a processor.

Pop the pork in a roasting dish and cover with the rhubarb marinade, adding a glass of water. Mix well, cover tightly with foil and roast for an hour and half.

Remove the pork from the pan and set aside.

My sauce had started to dry out a little so I added a little more water and seasoned it well. Pop the sauce on a very gentle heat to keep warm.

Cook the noodles according to the packet.

Get a pan on high and add oil. Cook the pork in batches until starting to crisp.

Serve the pork on top of the noodles, drizzled with the sauce and topped with the spring onions, chilli and coriander. Give it a squeeze of lime and dig in. As Jamie says – perfect!

It’s from Jamie at Home but you can also find it on his website.

Chicken Chow Mein

On 10th April 2015, This was Dinner…

What a lovely day it turned out to be. I went of to the market and sorted out some boring bits and bobs then came home and made a soup for next week.

At midday, Charlotte & Tilly came for a bit of pooch socialisation and a walk up to Cusworth Hall. They are the ‘reason’ we have Walter. We looked after Tilly before Christmas which set us off on this road, then it was a friend of a friend of Charlotte that had the pups so we are thankful to them both for that.

When Mr S had finished up some work we made this delicious Chow Mein. I gave the knife an extra special sharpen to cut the chicken breasts so thinly.

Preparing:

• Finely slice a couple of chicken breasts
• Finely chop a couple of garlic cloves
• Finely slice some mangetout
• Finely slice some good quality cooked ham
• Finely chop some spring onions
• Mix together light soy sauce, rice wine (dry sherry will do), sesame oil, salt & white pepper to make a marinade
• Get fine egg noodles (I used dried), sesame oil, groundnut oil, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine (again, dry sherry is OK), white pepper & caster sugar ready

Making:

Put the chicken in the marinade and leave for around 10 minutes whilst you prep everything else.

Cook the noodles in boiling water according to the instructions then drain and toss in a little of the sesame oil. Set aside.

Heat a wok or large pan over a high heat, add some groundnut oil and let it start to smoke lightly then add the chicken. If you have done as much as me, do it in a couple of batches. Stir-fry for a few minutes then transfer to a plate.

Reheat the pan again and add more groundnut oil. Stir fry the garlic for a few seconds then add the ham and mangetout, stir-frying for a minute.

Add the noodles, soys, rice wine, pepper, sugar, salt and spring onions and stir-fry for a couple more minutes.

Pop the chicken back in along with any juices and cook for about three or four more minutes then pop in just a little more sesame oil, stir and serve.

Chow Mein – Chow meaning fried and Mein meaning noodles, you could throw anything in here. Peas, prawns, whatever you have in.

This is another BBC Good Food recipe, I know I’m not one for measuring ingredients but I had to weigh my chicken just to get an idea on the weight, where this one calls for 100g mine was nearer 500!

Beef Stir Fry

We had some beef strips lounging in the freezer so a stir fry seemed like the best option as they are never the best bits of meat from the supermarket. Turns out, even though I wasn’t really looking forward to this it was very tasty.

Cook some noodles.

Flash fry the beef strips and remove from the pan.

Fry garlic, chilli, and grated ginger. for a few seconds, add sliced red and green pepper, after a couple of minutes add chopped spring onions. Mix together soy, brown sugar, oyster sauce and sesame oil and add to the pan along with the beef along with the noodles. Season.

Serve with cashews and a bit of tomato.

This was really a throw what you’ve got in meal.

Using NOODLES, BEEF STRIPS, SPRING ONION, RED PEPPER, GREEN PEPPER, TOMATO, GARLIC, CHILLI, GINGER, SOY SAUCE, SUGAR. OYSTER SAUCE, SESAME OIL and CASHEWS…

This was dinner…15th July 2014.

Thai Prawn Noodle Bowl

I wanted some fine rice noodles for this dish and our local Morrisons doesn’t stock them. I’m lucky if they stock the thicker rice noodles which I actually prefer to the shop-bought egg noodles. Luckily, our local deli sells them, at a great price too. The downside? The packet was massive and I had to fight to split the pack, resulting in a kitchen decorated with very small pieces of noodle. I kept finding them for days.

Trim some spring onions and deseed & thinly slice a red pepper.

Pop the noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water, leave to stand until cooked.

Stir fry some peanuts, preferably unsalted but I used salted, in a little oil. Remove from the pan.

Add the sliced onions and pepper and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Then add a finely sliced chilli and a crushed lemongrass stalk, half a tin of coconut milk, a little veg stock & a big dash of fish sauce and bring to the boil.

Stir in some seasoning and cooked prawns, adding the noodles.

Sprinkle the peanuts on top & serve with some coriander if you remember. Regular visitors to my blog will know that I am really good at forgetting this stage.

This was dinner… 20th November 2013.

Veggie Peanut Noodles with Coriander Omelette Ribbons

Well I finally got to the gym this week. About time. This was quite an achievement as it’s been bloody boiling in Sheffield today and unfortunately for me I have to catch a Northern Rail train home which I’m sure must have been built in 1892 before air-con existed. I was melting by the time I got to the gym, feeling like I had already done my workout.

Now I have to admit to having already eaten out at lunch time. It was supposedly a light bite but was rather filling. I went to The Showroom in Sheffield at and had Croque Madame with wedges, I was going to share the wedges with my cousin who I had lunch with but her meal came with it’s own wedges. It was very nice but by no means light. However, this was dinner…

Cook egg noodles according to the pack, drain (reserving some cooking water), add some sesame oil and leave to one side.

Mix together some peanut butter, soy, sesame oil & chilli sauce Now the recipe uses sweet chilli sauce but I only had Wahaca Searingly Hot Chile de Arbol Sauce (their name choice not mine) so I used that instead. You can use the cooking water here to thin it out a bit. Or, like me, you can accidentally drop the whole of the cooking water you have saved into the mix then skim as much off as possible. DON’T drain your noodles into a metal dish folks.

Stir fry carrot batons for a little then add garlic, shredded Chinese cabbage* and spring onions. It’s also worth pointing out the we added sliced chilli to our stir-fry, there was definitely a bit of spice to this meal. Add your peanut butter mix and your noodles and warm through.

*we used white cabbage as we couldn’t get our hands on any Chinese cabbage (Pak choi, Bok choi etc)

Whilst Mr S looked after the stir fry, I whisked up 3 eggs, some seasoning and some chopped coriander & cooked in a frying pan then cut into the ribbons which is then used to garnish the noodles.

This was dinner…12th July 2013.

Another Chinese Takeaway

It feels like I’m posting about Chinese takeaway every other day but I checked and this is only the 5th we’ve had one since I started, once a month for a takeaway is not bad I suppose. I felt like – “Oh no – not another cheat post” but writing these retrospectively this week it gets worse, believe me.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with me at the moment & I asked Mr S if we were strung up like Theon Greyjoy when we made this weeks list but apparently we came up with it of our own free will!

My day set off well, I went into town for my nails doing but rather than spending the rest of the day shopping and drinking cocktails I came home and we cleaned. How exciting.

When the evening came, the vegetarian dish we had planned didn’t appeal to either of us. The proviso was that the takeaway piggy had enough cash, he did.

We had crispy shredded smoked chicken, deep fried salt and pepper squid, special udon noodles and sweet and sour beef Hong Kong style…oh & chips.

I wasn’t a big fan of the beef but everything else was wonderful. It’s 4 weeks to my holiday so I really shouldn’t have, but I did.

This was dinner…22nd June 2013.

Thai pork patties with sweet chilli & noodles

Thank goodness for my obsession with the BBC Good Food website. My drafts are posted now so it’s left to memory to post what I ate and what changes I made. The recipe for these can be found here.

I already had some Maggi chilli and garlic sauce so I didn’t bother buying the lighter dipping sauce, other than that & chilling mine for a while I pretty much followed the recipe. I think 1 out of 10 is appropriate for my pitiful sauce ‘smear’ across the plate which is why I cropped it out of the photo!

There were really good, quick easy & cheap if you got the basics in your pantry.

 

3rd May 2013.