Blargh – random ramblings

For lunch today I whipped up a quick stirfry. The inspiration was the dish I had at Wagamama the week before in Lodon.  We didn’t have much time before we had to leave so I found some basic ingredients in the fridge.

• 2 packs of fresh udon noodles
• 2 large handfulls of bean sprouts
• 2 cups chopped chicken
• 3 tbsp Yoshida’s gourmet sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp peanut oil
• 1/4 cup shelled pistachios

Heat a skillet and add the peanut oil. Fry the noodles for a few minutes then add the chicken, bean sprouts, and sesame oil. Once a little char has started to build up add the gourmet sauce and soy sauce. Once everything is coated with the soy/gourmet sauce mixture add the pistachios and turn off the heat. Serve piping hot.

If I was to add some more “stuff” to it I would add some sliced green onions for color and some garlic and ginger for a little more flavor. But overall very tasty.

Everytime I’ve gone out for sushi I’ve always wanted to get some pickled ginger at home to use as a condiment. Recently I’ve noticed it being used garnish in a lot more dishes, like the Ginger Garlic Udon noodle dish I had yesterday at Wagamama. I did a bit of Googling and found a couple recipes and made up my own simple recipe to make a starting point:

• 1 cup rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 3 pinches of salt
• 2 large pieces of ginger

I used the back of a teaspoon to get the skin off of the ginger (very neat trick). I sliced one piece as thin as I could and the other one I cut in 1/8″ cubed strips. 

I shook up the vinegar, sugar, and salt in a pint sized mason jar to mix it. I then added the ginger and put it in the fridge. Will be checking on it in a few days.

I had to whip up a quick dinner to go with the brown rice, which I thought I had timed perfectly in the Zojirushi.  Turns out that it was still on central standard time, so my perfect timing was about 30 minutes off.  I scoured the Internet for recipes since I had wanted to do Peanut chicken for a while. I don’t think there’s much “Thai” over this dish, but it seems to be what to Google for.

I came up with the following marinade/sauce after looking at a few recipes:

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 4 cloves of garlic – minced
• large piece of ginger – grated
• 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• dash of crushed red pepper for heat

Everything whisked together in a bowl until smooth and 2 pounds of chicken tenders added to coat.  Under normal circumstances I would have put it on the grill, but with a snowstorm coming in I had to come up with something quicker. Put them on a baking sheet with tin foil that I had greased with some spray oil. I’ve baked things like this before, but it would have turned out pretty mushy because of the moisture in the marinade/sauce. To remove that I decided to put it in the oven and turn on the convection bake option on my Viking stove.  After 20 minutes the coating of the chicken was pretty much like I wanted, with a slight crunch on it. I let it sit another 5 minutes without the convection running.

It was pretty tasty, although a little salty. Next time I might chop up some dry roasted peanuts and sprinkle the chicken with this. It could use a bit more of a kick, but I’m not sure Melissa would approve of that.