MANCHURIAN CHICKEN WITH RADIATORS

Wow ! it’s been some time gone by till posting a recipe, not that I have stopped cooking, just nothing new lately, have to change that and expand my recipe repertoire.

One breast just about 300 grams. Didn’t adjust the marination. 1 cup macaroni. Cut back about 1/2 with the sauce ingredients. Serves 2

Adapted from Sooper Chef YouTube Channel

makes a pleasant dish, by ingredient amounts somewhat spicy, adjust to taste .

Once prepped, it’s a fast cook.

Ingredients for Chicken Marination:
Chicken boneless (cube cut) 500 g
Egg 1
Corn flour 2 tbsp ( cornstarch)
Soy sauce 2 tbsp
Black pepper powder 1/2 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Oil 1 tbsp
Oil (for frying) as required

Ingredients for boiling Macaroni:
Macaroni 2 cups (1 cup)
Oil 1 tbsp
Salt 1 tsp
Water as required

Ingredients for Manchurian Sauce:
Oil 2 tbsp
Garlic (chopped) 1 tbsp (substituted garlic powder)
Ketchup 1 cup
Red chili flakes 2 tbsp (you may want to adjust this less)
Soy sauce 2 tbsp
Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp
Salt to taste
Water 1 cup
Chili sauce 2 tbsp (I used hot sauce, again you may want to adjust this to taste)
White pepper powder 1 tsp
Sugar 1 tbsp
Capsicum (small cubes) 1 cup
Carrot (small cubes) 1 cup
Onion (small cubes) 1 cup

Ingredients for Assembling:
Cooked chicken as required
Boiled macaroni
Manchurian sauce
Green onion (Chopped) as required

Directions for Chicken Marination:
1. In a bowl add chicken, egg, corn flour, black pepper, soy sauce, salt, oil and mix well. Let it rest for 15-20 minutes.
2. In a wok ( or fry pan) heat oil and add marinated chicken, fry it fully cooked and golden brown in color. Set aside.
Directions for Macaroni Boiling:
3. In a pot heat water and bring it to boil, add oil, salt and macaroni. Boil until macaroni is 80% cooked. Strain and set aside.
Directions for Manchurian Sauce Preparation:
4. In a pan heat oil and add garlic, saute for 1 minute. Now add ketchup, red chili flakes, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt, white pepper powder, chili sauce, sugar and cook for 2-3 minutes. Now add water ( here you can thin the sauce with the macaroni water ) and cook until sauce thickens.
5. Now add capsicum, carrot, onion and cook for 1-2 minutes.
6. Now add cooked chicken, boiled macaroni and mix well. Cook until chicken is well coated in sauce. Adjust if necessary with the addition of more of the macaroni water.
7. Sprinkle green onion on top and serve.
Preparation time: 10-15 mins
Cooking time: 25-30 mins
Serving: 3-4

Prepared ingredients, I use shredded carrots ( usually shred a pound or 2 of carrots and store them in the fridge so carrot can easily be incorporated into many recipes)

macaroni heat sinks are boiled and ready

Heating up the skillet

Starting the frying process of the chicken, I use quad blend pepper freshly ground.

getting the crisp on !

remove from the pan

boil up the sauce

Add the prepared veggies, mix in and heat, don’t over cook , leave some crunch

Add the chicken and the macaroni to the pan, heat through

mix and heat thoroughly

MMMMMMMM………… plate up and garnish with some chopped green scallions

Quick bowl of soup

Chicken broth, Chicken, steamed veggies, homemade noodles , season as you like.(Chili paste) Top with fried egg.

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canoodling around

Oh  !  More dough, this time the noodle. Once you get hang of making dough for noodles, it’s hard to let go, back to the dried variety, that is if your not cooking for a crowd.

A beef soup base was the groundwork for the noodle. Simple dry  noodles won’t suffice.

Again I wont bore you with the recipe, this could go in a stew direction also  just thicken up the broth, yep add sour cream and milk or straight cream for a goulash finish.

I keep it as a broth , a bit lighter.

Since a small amount of noodle just grabbed the rolling pin. Dinner for two.

start with the basics

ok it’s the instant pot again, the searing setting give automatic temperature control

plate the meat when done

wilt up the veggies

add some stock

add back the meat

add some hot water supplied by the kuerig, seal up the reactor vessel and give it high pressure for a couple of minutes, this does the carrot effortlessly. Get on the with noodle.

over to the processor with the semolina and a yolk and i bit of water and a dribble of oil is also good.

Bzzzzzzzzzzz..Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz,, done

give the dough a break

let dry a bit after rolling

you can use a pizza cutter, nice and steady !

ready for the boiling water bath !

won’t take more than a couple of minutes

Flotation achieved, done

A big drainy scooper

plate up the noodle, top with the beef mixture, I think it only took a few minutes under pressure for the broth mixture, parsley, back to the computer…hmmm..    where the bread. OH we have the noodle no need for bread.  HA ! maybe bread and butter for dessert !

3 bean chili with smoked chicken

It started out as a quick search on the Instant Pot app for chili, Have plenty of dried beans in stock, a quick pressure cooker meal means I didn’t have a long soaking and boiling process ahead for a meal within an hour. I found a recipe for a 3 bean chili jar recipe. Remember when the jar recipes were all the rage for gifts ! Still easy to do for your own meal kits.

Pinto, white and black beans, like maybe a 1/4 cup each ,a can of chopped tomatoes, some tomato paste and a bit over leftover condensed tomato soup. The spice list was long, cumin seeds, coriander, dried hot peppers just to name a few. Chopped onions and garlic, celery and carrot to round out the flavor and a toss of frozen corn . Saute as usual add all else. Top off with veggie stock. Seal, set and be back later.

about 50 minutes later

start the plate with a layer of smoked chicken thighs 

add the 3 bean chili…

top with shredded cheese and chips,

a glass of dark home brew, next time a real light or a lime hard seltzer would be better fro contrast, or possibly a fruit shandy . The chili and the smoked chicken was fantastic. 

lo mein

inspired by you tube, Ready , Jet, Cook, Jet Tila, an adaption of recipe, Food Network

noodle time….semolina… Bob’s Red Mill recipe, fine noodle attachment on the pasta machine.

…….. or use store bough FRESH noodle

prep up ingredients….. from what I have on hand… here I have fresh harvested kale for greens , carrot matchsticks, sliced onions, ginger, garlic, hot pepper, sauce mixture with cornstarch , shrimp paste, boiled noodle

saute the onion…..

add in the carrot………….

cook till carrot tender… add the rest of ingredients…then the sauce, toss…

the sauce will start to thicken, keep tossing….

add the noodle…….

toss to coat and distribute sauce to the noodles

plate up……

add sesame seed (not shown)

 

BOWL OF HAPPINESS

Some chicken wing tips resulted in some tasty broth for soup.

 

CHOPPED RICE MACARONI ADDED TO THE SOUP

DONE !

Stuffed Chicken Breast

A basic stuffing, onions, celery with bread cubes. Make as usual with a bit of the Bell’s seasonings and wet with stock. Of course you could use a prepared stuffing mix.

A family member brought home some surplus bread, too much to consume before it would go stale, so I processed it into bread crumbs by broiling the slices, and processing in the food processor to different textures.

A sliced chicken breast, just some salt and pepper with addition course bread crumbs.

spread the crumbs on a tray with baking paper

place half of the chicken breast on the tray and cover with stuffing

Place the other half of the breast atop the stuffing, top with additional crumbs

bake and broil as necessary

serve it up…

served with some steamed carrots

lo mein

With the abundance of fresh veggies and with the addition of noodles, lo mein was an easy choice, though prep would be essential to the recipe.

A slicing of the veggies was done using the rotary slicer of the kitchen aid attachment.

One of those recipes, the more you look the more variations you find , you settle as with most “authentic” recipes to the ingredients you have available to the village or are grown locally.

I didn’t  get to list all the sauce ingredients and amounts, but loosely followed several recipes that I researched by listing all the ingredients that compose the sauce to get an idea of the basics. I modified it by adding a bit more cornstarch and a good amount of stock as I prefer s saucy-er thick coating to the dish.

The sauce was a build up from the basic soy sauce/rice wine/sugar combo. Some of the associated components are: soy sauce, rice wine, fish sauce, shrimp paste, chili paste, ginger root, galangal root, garlic, sugar, honey, salt and pepper with sesame oil.

The sauce, less the stock.

The veggies are the same deal, use what you have. Pea pods and the baby bok choy were included as they were fresh and attractive from the market. The carrot was also crunchy as they were fresh, large diameter and not very tapered as the packaged carrots were.

Stir fry the veggies in oil.

 

While stir frying the veggies, prep the noodles, I used rice noodles instead of the wheat noodles, so just a brief toss in hot water is all that’s needed, drain and add to wok.

 

Mix well , then add the sauce… serve….

 

 

 

The result is as good or better result than restaurant  because you have control of the ingredients. So if you like salad with noodles with a sauce here it is.

I made this dish twice and this post is a compilation of the pictures from both.

Beef stew

It was time to put away all the spices and herbs and return to a simple beef stew.  Usually a fall seasonal  dish but any break in the high temps and the availability of beef and beef broth made this an easy choice.

Beef, carrot, onion, celery and potato,  common ingredients. Lucky to have some beef broth which I had made previously and froze.

After cutting the beef, brown in some oil, remove from pan

 

now in the same pan saute the veggies.

 

Add the broth, and simmer. …. add the beef back into the pan, but you knew that !🤣

I scrubbed and diced some white potato, and microwaved them slightly, then added to the stew.

Some reserved broth was mixed with rice powder and added to thicken stew. Simmer till the potatoes are done to your preference. Salt and pepper to balance. Nothing fancy here, beef flavor. Perhaps some bread to mop up gravy.

 

spicy chicken tomato soup

The last time I made my vegetable stock, there was some hot pepper pieces in there with the vegetable remnants, so now everything I use the stock for has a spicy flavor, not that I mind.

Not a lot of pictures here.

Started with a chicken thigh browned in bacon fat, removed from pan and added the usual characters, onion, several mushrooms prepared garlic and simmered a bit. Add in some whole tomatoes previously frozen from the farmers market. A bit of tomato paste in the mix also.

Chop the thigh , with the skin and return to the pot with the bone and an ample  amount of vegetable broth. Shredded carrot, dried parsley, thyme, a smidgen of ginger. A quarter head  of red cabbage chopped fine added to the pan, what else ?

I sure that someone could come up with a Spanish sounding name for this spicy tomato soup, sopa de tomate picante as the google translate says.