Make/Bake 34 - Beef Chow Mein and Sweet and Sticky Stir Fry Chicken

M won't eat Chinese food. It's not that he doesn't like it but apparently after every time he's tried it, he's felt really ill, which is quite off putting I can imagine. We have no idea what causes it and unsurprisingly he's not willing to try it much to test it out!

This problem  does cause a few grumbles as Chinese is probably one of my favourite foods so I only ever get to eat it on very rare occasions - booo. To compensate for this Ma greed to let me try a few home-made versions of dishes to see if they had the same effect and I'm very pleased to say that they don't - hooray!!!

I started off with simple stir-fries and found he liked Hoisin and Chow Mein sauce and also noodles and stir-fried veggies. I think made my own stir-fry sauces which were a big success. No pictures at the moment but my favourite is as follows:

Sweet and Sticky Stir Fry Chicken

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts cut into chunks
4 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp oil - I use rapeseed but any flavourless oil would do
2 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Rice Vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1 packet of stir fry vegetables
 noodles or rice to serve

Method
1. Coat the chicken with the cornflour. Mix the Soy Sauce, Vinegar and Honey and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a wok and then fry the chicken until it's golden brown.
3. Add the vegetables and cook for 3-4 minutes
4. Add the Soy mixture and cook for another 2-3 minutes until thickened and sticky.

 
To follow on from this success I decided to try another recipe from one of my favourite books - The Takeaway Secret. I've blogged about this book a few times, it's brilliant! The recipes are so spot on to some the the popular foods but better as they can be much healthier.

I decided to give the Beef Chow Mein a go as M likes beef and noodles. Personally I tend to prefer Chicken but after this I could be converted! Very tasty indeed and very simple and quick.

You marinade the beef in soy sauce, garlic powder, ginger powder and vegetable oil for five minutes then mix in cornflour and leave for 10 minutes. Whilst the meat rests you make the chow mein sauce by combining oyster sauce, soy sauce, chicken stock and cornflour.

Meanwhile cook egg noodles according to the packet (usually boil in water for 3-5 minutes) and then drain, rinse and toss with toasted sesame oil.

The meat is then lightly fried, until just brown and then set aside whilst you fry some garlic, ginger, sliced onion and bean sprouts for 2-3 minutes. You then add the noodles and beef and prepared sauce for another 2-3 minutes and then season with pepper and serve.

Yummy. M liked it so much he's requested it another night - success!