52 New Recipes | Chicken Stir-Fry with Noodle Cake
My Hungry Harvest box gave me bok choy this week.
Which sent me off to Cook's Illustrated's website for some help.
(Bok choy and I aren't really on a first-name basis.)
I found a fair number of sauteed bok choy recipes, but I wanted to use my bok choy as an ingredient, not so much as a main star of a recipe.
So, I found a chicken stir-fry recipe, which was intriguing because it included a noodle cake, which I'd never tried before.
Anyway. To use the bok choy, you slice up the stems sort of like celery and cook them before you cook the leaves.
This lets you get the stems cooked properly without overcooking the greens, which are added at the very, very end.
The noodle cake called for fresh Chinese egg noodles, which I couldn't find. The suggested alternative was fresh spaghetti noodles, which I also couldn't find.
So, I cooked up some regular spaghetti. I had a little trouble with my noodle cake getting chewy rather than crispy, which could be related to me using the wrong noodles.
Still, we all liked the dish, and it used up lots of my bok choy.
And my scallions, which were another Hungry Harvest item.
So, I think I'll make this again, but I'll go on the hunt for the fresh noodles the recipe specifies. Maybe an Asian specialty store? Or perhaps a supermarket with a large international section?
Someone else posted this recipe on their blog, so you can go check it out there if you want to give it a try.
What new dish did you make this week?
Nothing too exciting this week here, I'm afraid. I did use up some leftover oatmeal in a completely improvised apple crisp topping last night, but that's hardly exotic. Your noodle cake sounds much better.
I was a bit scared when I saw the title- noodle cake. But it looks surprisingly good! I've never bought and cooked with bok choy, so I would be at a total loss. Stir fry is always a winner though. It was our dinner last night! 🙂
You could make your own noodles. The tricky part would be getting them cut small enough. Or maybe not. Do you have a pasta maker?
I love how you've been posting earlier in the day recently. I usually check new posts during my early commute to work, so this is great!
My husband is Chinese, so he and my MIL usually stir-fry everything (from meat to veggies). They have never made chicken stir-fried with bok choy though. I have also never had noodle cake. But those are definitely ingredients in a Chinese dish. I will tell them about their recipe and see if they want to try making it too! 😀
I check every morning as well! It's part of my "get prepared for the day" routine.
Heh, well, when I have time and am organized, I write posts the night before and schedule them to be published in the morning.
When I have less time and am less organized....well, then things run a lot later!
I made a hearty pumpkin chili and spent grain bred to celebrate the cooler fall weather!
I grew bok choi in my garden this year and it was super easy, so I cooked with it all summer. I cooked it similar to cabbage sometimes, but mostly added it to stir fry recipes!
I did not think our store sold those fresh noodles, but they DO -- they are just in the produce section, by the tofu, where I would never in a million years have looked if someone hadn't told me. You might want to check there if you haven't!
Ohhh! I looked by the fresh refrigerated pasta, like by the tortellini and such. I didn't think to check the tofu area. Thanks!
I made a healthier take on a tater tot casserole. I used Greek yogurt, cheese, and an avocado for the creamy part of the dish. Added in ground beef, corn,and green beans. Then I topped with shredded potatoes instead of tater tots. It was just ok. I also made an apple impromptu that was so delicious. Mostly, everyone ate leftover chicken and dumplings from the night before and apple impromptu. I hate when I spend a lot of time making something and no one likes it. Such a bummer.
Not so much a new dish, but rather a new cooking method. We received a smoker for Christmas last year and have yet to use it! So, I laid out a turkey yesterday to thaw over the next few days and we are going to test out our smoker this weekend!
If you brine the turkey, it will be *so* much better than just a straight smoke. Give it 24 hours of brining.
I made the Mexican bean stew that came in my Dinnerly box. It was surprisingly better than I thought it would be. I don't care for sweet potatoes, but it was good. The whole reason I'm getting the Dinnerly box is so that it will take me out of my rut of cooking the same things or not cooking at all! At least it is affordable even if I don't care for everything they send.
Thanks. I have been growing bok choy this summer and need to finish it up!
I’m using up 5 apples that started to get wrinkley. I cut them up and added some spices and put them in the bottom of the crockpot with a pork sirloin roast on top. ps- The fresh Asian noodles can be found in the produce section with tofu and vegetarian items.
Not a totally new recipe, but I changed out some ingredients in an old one. I always make sloppy joes with a dab of this and a dash of that, but this time I decided to leave out the touch of brown sugar (I'm trying to cut way, way back on sugar) and add the organic version of Ro-tel tomatoes with medium green chilis plus tomato paste, instead of using regular canned tomatoes or tomato sauce. So the sloppy joes were spicier than usual, but we actually liked it quite a bit. Now to remember this idea....
I have used bok choy, usually in stir fry, but I never thought of cooking the stems first. Thanks for the tip!
I LOVE rotel. And if my family liked spicy stuff more, I'd use it all the time.
As it stands, I have to restrain myself.
Bok choy stir fried with scallions, garlic, and soy sauce is an easy and tasty side dish. Worth a try with the family.
This is exactly what I did with my Hungry Harvest bok choy this week and it was delicious! Now if I could just get the rest of the family on board...
That stir fry looks awesome!
This is one of my favorite ways to cook bok choy: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/braised-baby-bok-choy-103970
It goes really nicely with stir fries, roasted chicken, noodle dishes, and just about anything!
Oooh I love noodle cakes. I've never been brave enough to make one myself, since I'm 90% sure I would burn it.
This week we made roasted spaghetti squash. It had a cheese and cream filling with herbs, so it tasted pretty good. It was definitely very rich, though.
That was smart to make bok choi an ingredient instead of the main feature! I hadn't thought of that (my husband asked if I could start cooking with bok choi in an effort to add more cruciferous vegetables to our diet). It seems like you could maybe sub ramen noodles for fresh? I'd keep on the lookout for fresh but just if you're in a pinch again. Joshua would know better than I do. 🙂
I wondered that too...that seems like a more authentic substitute than spaghetti!
The ramen are definitely frugal for both money and time. I wonder if the special Asian noodles are frugal?
My husband, who pretty much hates all vegetables except for potatoes, loves bok choi. I grow huge amounts during the summer and we eat it raw, sautéed, in soups...pretty much any way I can think of to include it in a meal. And it grows really easily where we live, no pests and in less than optimal sunlight. There is a baby bok choi variety that is perfect for container gardening, in case anyone is looking for something new to grow next summer.
That's so great that there IS a vegetable that he loves!
I'm embarrassed to admit that I waited decades to ever try Ro-tel tomatoes. I had been told, and I've forgotten by whom, that they weren't good, so I shouldn't even bother to try them. They are delicious! All those years, wasted....
I made the best beans ever - Borracho beans in the Instant Pot. I think the recipe was from the Essential Instant Pot cookbook. So good. I used the decidedly unfrugal (but delicious)Rancho Gordo vaquero beans. I don't believe I have ever raved about beans before but these were so so good.
The beans called for half a cup dark beer. I don't care to drink beer but didn't want to waste the large bottle I bought for the beans so I made this beer-cheese quick bread to go with the beans and it was fantastic fresh out of the oven. I have been using the left overs for toast and it is delicious!
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/basic-beer-cheese-bread
So, two wins for me this week! I will make both of these recipes over and over.
If you can't get the fresh noodles and need to use spaghetti, make them earlier in the day. Place them in the fridge for a few hours to a day. The dry noodles absorb too much liquid during cooking so don't want to crisp up. Allowing a rest time, makes them more like fresh, for the cake. At least that is my experience.
I love bok choy, particularly baby bok. I make stir-fry with it often. I grow the small kinds as often as possible and is ready to eat in just weeks. Takes up next to no space.
Forgot to say that for those that find the large bok choy a little too spicy/peppery on it's own (me! fine in stir-fry), look for baby or young/very small bok. Either the varieties that mature small or the large varieties that are picked as young, are a little milder. I like the baby as it has the same great flavor but the peppery high notes aren't there. This is my preference when using bok as a side dish of some sort.
Yum! I just made chicken chow mein to use up chicken mince and cabbage 😉
My Guatemalan grandmother made a noodle cake regularly to use up leftover noodles. She would add an egg just to keep it all together, fry it up and I used to, still do but she died over 10 years ago and my mom's just isn't as good, love the crispy bits. To be honest, she would make anything-cake to use up leftovers. Leftover rice: rice cake (rice, egg, salt, fry it up, eat the crispy bits, yum!) Leftover spinach: spinach-cake, my younger self really struggled with this but I love spinach now. Makes me want to make noodle cake for my kids.
I'm a day behind. Our new recipe attempts are by fits and starts. We tried kofta, which is basically ground lamb mixed with spices and molded around skewers, then grilled. The spices used with lamb are not spices we usually have with meat (cinnamon, cloves) but I still had 5½ out of 7 approvals. The lamb ended up at our house in a mixup involving pork sausage so it was a fortuitous thing that people liked it. 🙂
Also, do you ever make your own pasta? I even bought a pasta mill the other week at the estate resale shop nearby, and it has a spaghetti maker as part of it. Pasta dough is super easy in the stand mixer: for each cup of all-purpose flour you'll need ¼ tsp salt, 1 egg, and 2 ish tbsp water.
I've never made my own, largely because on average, we don't tend to eat a lot of pasta. So, the boxes I buy here and there just don't add up to much.
I've never used a pasta mill except for the one that came with my mom's Kitchen Aid and that was a rather dreadful experience. So, I guess I've been scarred ever since!
I have a 9-year-old boy who thinks turning the crank on the mill is next to heaven. 🙂