francies fancies: August 2016

Another hot, humid, rain, lightning, thunder, very frightened, dogs-shaking-like-a-leaf day in Happy Valley. Praise God that He gave someone the intelligence to invent air conditioning. I am always so grateful that a/c is in my car, in my house, in my office building, and in most places I go during the summer. The good thing about this weather is that it has brought the rain. The farm fields in the surrounding area were forlorn and turning brown rapidly. We've had a few days of thunderstorms and crazy lightning and that seemed to help a bit. I hope it helped enough to keep the crops alive. I did notice and was told that the corn is too short for where it should be at this time in August. We will see...

On to the recipe! I have been in such a mood for Asian flavors lately. Mostly mee goreng and fried rice and lo mein. In the recent past I've made all of the aforementioned items at home and then earlier this week we ordered take out from our favorite Chinese restaurant in town. It was good, but it didn't satisfy my hankering for those strong flavors of ginger, oyster sauce, rice wine...

I came across a Chicken Chow Mein recipe from Cook's Country a while back and also saw the ATK show when they made it. I have been meaning to download the recipe and make it myself but only got around to it last week.

The most important element when making stir fry is mise en place - everything in place. It is the MOST important step before you turn on the stove. Prep is one of my most favorite things to do so this is easy for me. I also line everything up beside the stove so I can put it in the frying pan and move the empty dish to the other side of the stove out of my way. This assures no clutter or accidents. The more organized a cook you are the better the experience.

Mise en Place for Chicken Chow Mein

You can see I have everything prepped and ready to go. Believe me, it's so much easier to cook like this. I used to be able to prep while cooking and it was all good, but that was before I started forgetting ingredients and questioning whether or not I added something. It's too stressful to cook like that now, for me. I'm getting older and get distracted more easily. This method is well worth the extra time, in my opinion.

The ingredients are as follows, clockwise from top:

Bowl of sliced chicken, marinating in dry sherry and a bit of cornstarch

Cooked noodles tossed with a bit of toasted sesame oil

Bean sprouts (in a bowl of cold water to keep them crispy)

Scallion tops

Slivered ginger and minced garlic

Shredded carrot bits, sliced mushrooms, the white part of scallions

A semi-frozen clump of red peppers

Sauce - a mix of dry sherry, chicken broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and cornstarch

Napa cabbage

The Cook's Country recipe is delicious, but I adapted it for what I had in my kitchen. I didn't go out to buy any special ingredients for this. I wanted to use up what ingredients I already had in my refrigerator/freezer. This is a great dish for doing just that.

Chicken Chow Mein

adapted from Cooks Country

1 (9 ounce) pkg fresh Chinese noodles -- I used leftover spaghetti

1 Tbs Toasted Sesame oil

1 tsp Baking Soda

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices -- I used a pound of chicken breasts

3 Tbs Chinese rice wine or dry sherry -- I used the sherry since that's what I had

1 Tbs cornstarch

1/2 cup chicken broth

3 Tbs soy sauce

3 Tbs oyster sauce

1/4 tsp white pepper

2 Tbs vegetable oil

6 ozs shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced thin -- I used what I had, baby portabellas

1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch thick matchsticks -- I used a large holed grater and just chipped away at the carrot on the grater. It was less work than slicing up a carrot into matchsticks!

2 celery ribs cut on the bias into 1/4 in thick slices -- I am not fond of cooked celery and rarely have it in the house, so I used Napa cabbage. I ran out of bok choy or I would have used it in place of the celery.

4 scallions, white and green parts separated and sliced thin -- I used 2 scallions, it was enough for me.

1 Tbs fresh ginger, grated -- I peeled and thinly sliced a 1 inch piece of ginger because I like it very much!

3 garlic cloves, minced -- I used 4...or maybe 5 :)

4 ounces mung bean sprouts

1. Boil water and cook noodles. If you buy fresh Chinese noodles they cook in about 3 minutes. If you use spaghetti or vermicelli then just do what you usually do to cook your spaghetti. After cooking, drain noodles, rinse in cold water then drain again. Toss noodles with sesame oil in bowl and set aside. If you use leftover spaghetti, just toss with the sesame oil and set aside.

2. Dissolve baking soda in 1/2 cup of water and add sliced chicken (this step keeps the chicken tender) Let chicken soak for 15 minutes at room temperature. Drain, rinse under cold water, drain again then pat dry with paper towels. Combine 1 Tbsp rice wine (or dry sherry) and 2 tsp cornstarch and chicken in bowl; set aside.

3. Whisk broth, soy sauce, oyster sauce, white pepper, remaining 2 Tbs rice wine (or sherry) and remaining 1 tsp cornstarch together in bowl; set aside

4. Heat oil in 12-inch non-stick skillet over high heat until just smoking, then:

Add chicken, stirring frequently, until opaque, about 2 minutes

Add carrot and mushrooms, stirring frequently, until tender, about 2 minutes

Add celery (or whatever substitute) and cook for about 1 minute

Add scallion whites, garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant

what I did with the ginger slices was make a hot-spot with a bit of oil on the side of the pan and fried the ginger slices first, and when they were lightly browned I added the garlic and scallion whites and cooked for about 30 seconds

Whisk the broth mixture to recombine (the cornstarch settles to the bottom so mix well) and add to skillet. Cook until thickened and chicken is cooked through, about 2 minutes.

Add bean sprouts and noodles and toss until sauce evenly coats noodles, about 1 minute.

Transfer to platter or bowl and top with scallion greens. Serve.

If you'd like to add a bit of heat, I use Sriracha or Frank's Red Hot Sauce or Sambal Oelek. They all work well with this dish.

I hope you try this recipe as it is so easily adaptable to whatever veggies you have in the house. I have never bought rice wine, but I always have Marsala or some other dry sherry for other recipes, so I use that. It works perfectly!