Hello! This #PastaWednesday we are going to Asia and cooking something delicious with rice noodles we all love SO much! You can serve these bowls cold as a salad, perfect to bring them to work with you or slightly warm immediately after you finish cooking. You can use chicken breast meat instead of chicken thighs, but I find thighs so much more juicer in this recipe. You can also swap chicken with steak, prawns or tofu. Feel free to explore different flavours :)
Ingredients (makes 2 bowls)
4 chicken thighs (deboned, no skin)
2 tbsp soy sauce (Tamari)
1tbsp honey
1tbsp mirin
1/2 red chilli
1tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 chopped garlic clove
1/2 Cucumber
2tbsp rice wine vinegar
Fresh Mint
1/2 red chilli
200g tenderstem Broccoli
1 big carrot
2 Spring onions
1 Lime
120g rice noodles
3 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1tbsp black sesame seeds
1tbs sesame seeds
Fresh mint
Method
Cut the chicken into 1cm strips. Halve, deseed and slice 1/2 red chilli, preserve another half for pickled cucumber. Place half the chilli in a bowl with soy sauce, mirin, honey, garlic, grated ginger and 2 tbsp of cold water, stir well. Add chicken strips to the bowl and coat in the marinade, cover and transfer to the fridge to marinate.
Make the pickle. Halve the cucumber lengthways, scoop out and discard the seeds. Thinly slice the cucumber and place in a bowl. Chop some mint and add to the bowl with the remaining chilli and 2tbsp rice vinegar. Season with salt&pepper, stir and set aside.
Prepare the vegetables. Trim and peel the carrot, using a vegetable peeler, peel lengthways into ribbons. Trim and peel the carrot, then peel lengthways into ribbons. Finely chop the spring onions. Trim the broccoli and wash it.
Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat, add 2tbsp sesame oil and grill broccoli on medium-high heat, approx 2-3min on each side. Season with salt and pepper. When done sprinkle it with sesame seeds and set aside.
Cook the chicken in the same non-stick frying pan using vegetable oil. Add the chicken to the pan, reserving the marinade. Cook for 6-7 minutes or until cooked through with no pink meat, stirring constantly. Add the marinade and heat through for 1-2 minutes until bubbling. Add the spring onions, stir, remove the pan from the heat and set aside to rest.
Cook the noodles in a pan of salted boiling water following the packaging instructions.
EXTRA TIP (You can add the carrot ribbons to your noodles while cooking them if you wish to warm them through for a minute or two or simply serve them raw for some crunch like I did.) Drain well, return to the pan and stir through 1tbsp sesame oil and a pinch of salt if needed.
Place the noodles, carrots, broccoli, chicken and sauce in bowls. Sprinkle some more seeds and spring onions over if you wish and serve with the pickle and lime halves.
Get your chopsticks ready and enjoy :)
Anja xx
steak & merlot 