Zha Jiang Mian!

Zha jiang mian is a traditional Chinese way of serving noodles, typically involves plainly cooked noodles with sauteed ground meat with a salty bean sauce.

Here is my less salty and lighter take on it!

Ingredients
1. a hand full of noodles
2. 2 eggs
3. green onion
4. bok choy
5. cooked, peeled, frozen shrimp (just easier than cooking shrimps from scratch)
6. Chinese sausage
7. soy sauce
8. oyster sauce
9. pinch of S&P
10. pickled cabbage (zha cai) [optional]

Procedure
Cooking the noodles: (the noodles are JUST as important as the sauce, I cannot stress how important the noodles are)
1. rule of thumb, boil a litre of water per hand full of noodle (unless you have extremely large hands... then figure it out yourself)
2. place bok choy when you just start to heat the water (this way the choy is cooked right when water boils)
3. place noodle in, mix to prevent sticking to bottom, and cook for 1 min
4. add a cup of cold water, bring back to boil, cook for another minute, repeat this step (this will give you an "al dente" texture, so if you like soft noodles, increase cooking time on the last cycle)
5. drain noodle and bok choy in strainer and cool with water

Cooking the sauce: (~5-7 min)
1. heat oiled wok to med - med high heat
2. fry finely chopped green onion and diced sausage, then add eggs, beaten
3. season with salt and pepper (you season at this stage because egg is still runny and it's easier for the seasoning to evenly mix)
3. add in chopped shrimps and pickled cabbage just as egg starts to solidify
4. add soy sauce and generous amount of oyster sauce (this provides the thickness of the sauce and colour)
5. add in strained noodles and bok choy, mix and cook for another minute and serve!

Tips: add a fine balance of shrimp and sausage, along with the eggs you don't want a protein overload. Also, use you common sense when it comes to how MUCH sauce you want to make, there is nothing worse than having too little sauce, or too much sauce where you can't even taste the noodles.

Also this is just a rule of thumb when cooking. Cook ingredients that carry a lot of flavour in oil first before adding anything else. Oil is a flavour medium and can will pass the flavour of, in this case, scallion and sausage to rest of the sauce.

I LOVE noodles, and sometimes I just get tired of soup based cooking methods. This a great alternative that quick and delicious. Enjoy!

Oven Baked Chicken!

This is what i usually do with the rest of my chicken thighs that i don't use in the stew.
It's a simple marinade then bake, easiest and tastiest chicken ever!

Ingredient
Chicken thigh, whole x2
onion
garlic
green onion
thai chilli
ginger
light AND dark soy sauce
salt and pepper
cooking alcohol
sugar

Procedure
1. Score chicken, place in large bowl
2. chop half an onion, one clove garlic, one green onion, sliced ginger, and ONE chilli (unless you can really handle your spicy food, don't add more than one chopped chilli)
3. add salt, pepper, and sugar (don't add more sugar than salt and pepper combined)
4. add light (for flavour) and dark (for colour) soy sauce, and cooking alcohol
5. mix with hands and make sure scored side is down and submerged in marinade!
6. marinade over night, bake in preheated 400 F for 40 minutes.

Tips:
1. make sure you WASH YOUR HANDS after mixing with chilli. Guys, you do NOT want to go take a piss without washing your hands.
2. I like to bake on tin foil, this way I don't have to wash the baking tray after and just throw out the foil.
3.if you're up for making it fancier, marinade for shorter amount of time. Take all the marinade juice, with all the onions and garlic, etc -> reduce that in sauce pan over medium heat, serve on baked chicken.

This is a great recipe, and super cheap! (you know what's up college/university students living by yourselves!)

Now give it a try!

Chicken Stew!

Very quick and simple chicken stew

Ingredients:
Chicken thigh (cut into quarter pieces)
potato
green onion (finely chopped)
ginger
garlic (finely chopped)
star anise
Szechuan pepper
salt and pepper
soy sauce
Chinese hot sauce

Steps:
1. sear chicken pieces in med-high heat in a well oiled pan
2. add garlic, green onion, and ginger, continue stirring to prevent sticking
3. add a cup of water and let chicken finish cooking as a stew
4. bring heat down to medium and add in cubed or sliced potatoes
5. add star anise, Szechuan pepper, salt and pepper, and soy sauce
6. cover lid to simmer as needed
7. add hot sauce (the one you want is the clear jar with a picture of old lady on it, find it in any Chinese supermarket)

I don't list the amount of ingredients because it's all relative, depending on how much chicken you use or how you like to flavor your food, change up the amount of seasonings. Rule of thumb, never add too much star anise or Szechuan pepper, both are very strong flavors.

I like to reduce it until slightly thickened. Serve with rice. Other hearty vegetables can be used as well, but potatoes is good for thickening the stew with its starchy texture :)

I should've took a picture of it before I ate the whole damn pot...

Much more to come!