Saturday, November 15, 2008

Chicken Stir-Fry

I made the best dinner last night. I wish I had taken a picture of it so I could post it here but I hadn't planned on blogging about it so I didn't. Oh well. I'm gonna blog it anyway.

It was kind of a stir-fried chicken but it had just the right amount of 'heat' (for me anyway) to make it really yummy. I think it was just at the edge of E's 'heat' index...if it had been any spicier I don't think he would have liked it, but he said he liked this. I'm gonna make it again.

I kind of took a couple of recipes and put them together and then I substituted stuff because I didn't have what the recipe called for on hand and had to improvise.

  • 1 pound chicken (I had a 20 oz package of chicken tenders so I froze half and used half)
  • 8 oz angel hair pasta (I didn't have any angel hair so I used regular spaghetti)
  • 2 c. fresh broccoli
  • 1/2 c. Kraft Asian salad dressing (okay...I didn't have any of this stuff but I had Soy Vey teriyaki sauce...and I used almost 1/2 c. of that and a splash or two of Newman's Own salad dressing)
  • 1/4 t. garlic powder
  • 1/4 t. ground ginger (didn't have any so I skipped this)
  • 1/4 t. red pepper flakes (this was just enough for me...if you need more heat, bump it up)
  • 1/3 c. dry roasted peanuts (didn't have any of these so I toasted some slivered almonds instead)
  • a couple of green onions, sliced

First I put the water on to boil for the pasta. While I was waiting for that to come to a boil I used my wok to dry-toast the almonds. When they started to brown I poured them into a bowl. Then I cut up the chicken. E doesn't chew meat (or something...I don't understand it...) so I cut the chicken up very small. When the water was boiling, I broke the pasta in half, tossed it in and gave it a little stir. Then I cleaned the brocolli (how do you spell that???) and cut it into flowerettes.

Then I started to stir fry the chicken. I dribbled a little of the Newman's Own into the wok while I cooked the chicken thinking it might add some flavor (I couldn't tell if it made a difference). For the last 3 minutes or so of cooking the pasta I tossed the broccolli (that doesn't look right...) into the pot.

Combine the dressing(s) and spices. After the chicken is done, pour the dressing mixture over the chicken and let it cook for a minute or so. Drain the pasta (and that unspellable green vegetable) and then dump it in the wok with the chicken. Stir it all up a bit. I thought the sauce looked a little soupy so I took a tablespoon of cornstarch, mixed it with a little water and dumped that in. Then let it cook for a minute or so.

You can then put this yummy concoction on a pretty platter. I just put the wok on the table. Sprinkle the peanuts almonds and green onion over the top.

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