Chicken And Mushroom Stir-Fry

Well hello Nigel!  I have been perusing Nigel Slater's book The Kitchen Diaries again for some dinner inspo.  (See, I know the trendy words.)  We like chicken, we like mushrooms, we like a quick meal so this was just the thing.  After making it, I decided I would do more tweaking to the recipe next time.  You may laugh but I found this a very masculine dish.  Quite savoury and spicy, and simple.  Ooh -  do I mean just like a man? :=)

I took a few shortcuts - well, it was Sunday night - 'cos I didn't want to miss seeing the Masterchef boys do their thing.  Don't you love the way they have their favourites? Clearly George likes the teary young girls so he can have a bit of a weep with them.  He gets very emotional when one of them has to leave, doesn't he?  While Gary and Matt look on a bit helplessly.  Anyway let's get stuck into Nigel's stir-fry.

Slightly adapted from Nigel's recipe:

Serves 2:


ingredients:


1-2 tbs olive oil or peanut oil - whatever you fancy

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 tbs fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped

3 spring onions, thinly sliced

3 red chillies, finely chopped

2 stalks of lemon grass finely sliced, or 2 dessertspoons of lemon grass paste 

480g. diced chicken breast - or just use tenderloins

225g. mushrooms, thinly sliced or chopped

2 tbs lime juice

2 tbs Thai fish sauce, or if you forget to buy some (who me?), use 2 mashed-up-with-a-fork anchovies

1 tsp palm sugar or raw sugar 

a few Thai basil or mint leaves

1-2 x 85g. packets of Mi Goreng Noodles (or similar noodles) - minus the salty little sachets of flavouring



Method:


Heat the oil in a work or large frying pan

Throw in the garlic, ginger, spring onions, chillies and lemon grass

Stir it around for a few minutes

Tip the mix out onto a plate and put aside

Now chuck in the chook (chicken) with more oil if needed

Stir it and let it turn golden while you stir every so often

In go the mushrooms - and stir

Grab your aromatics and tip back into the pan

Mix the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar in a cup

And pour into the pan

Toss in the herbs

Now add the plain noodles that you have boiled for a few minutes (as per the packet)

Stir it all around and eat with glee!

ingredients gathered  

get Mr P. to stir the aromatics   

   

and then he stirs the chicken   

and then he stirs the mushrooms in  

chuck the aromatics back in     

stir the juice, sugar and fish sauce together  

toss the noodles around   

and slurp away 

Nigel didn't actually say what cut of chicken to use, so I chose breast but you could try diced thigh meat.  I wasn't keen on the mint I threw in at the end, but that could be because I only had regular mint not the Thai kind.  And a bit oddly, Nigel doesn't mention what to eat the dish with, so we grabbed some noodles, which went down really well. You could use whatever noodles you like - rice, egg, rice vermicelli, ramen, instant - take your pick, folks.

my wok-y doodle