Friday, 14 June 2013

Failsafe Feisty Noodles





So we cook on - but neglect our page! That is all going to turn around. Sophia did a fantastic job of cooking chicken dumplings recently - and these noodles are a firm favourite now. So many dishes to upload.
The title of this dish is to give credit to Maria from Feisty Tapas :) FAILSAFE refers to the dietary management of people who need to avoid all unnatural additives and preservatives, but also eat food low in salicylates, glutamates and amines. This recipe is moderate salicylate and amine. Of course, if you do not suffer such sensitivities you can add in many lovely things and use normal soy sauce! Please note that malt syrup contains a small amount of gluten so this is not suitable for coeliacs!

There are two wondrous discoveries in the making of this dish - one is that cooking your chicken first in oil at 60 degrees makes an enormous difference to the chicken - it was unbelievably tender. The second discovery is my cheat's FAILSAFE soy sauce, a delightful condiment on the taboo list for folks with these sensitivities. Plus, using so much malt syrup - it is very high in vitamin B.

Tell me findings.


Prep Time: 10 mins | Cook Time: 18 mins | Makes: 1 serving | Difficulty: Medium

Ingredients:

  • Enough very warm water to cover rice noodles plus optional 1/2 tsp salt.
  • Packet of pad Thai rice noodles or vermicelli
  • 2 cloves of garlic or 1tsp garlic powder (if tolerated, 1 chilli and 2cm piece of ginger)
  • 40gram FAILSAFE oil
  • 400gram chicken
  • 2-3 Large handfuls of tolerated vegetables; celery, beans, bamboo shoots, Brussels sprouts, *carrot, snow peas or whatever your family likes!
  • Tolerated herbs such as parsley and chives.
  • 1/3 cup Soy sauce and oyster sauce or 3/4 cup of FAILSAFE soy sauce **
  • 1/2 cup or 100gram of liquid stock (veggie stock diluted or chicken stock)
  • 2-3 tbsp peanut butter or FAILSAFE cashew nut butter*
  • 1/2 tbsp cornstarch

 *Moderate salycilate or amines

**Failsafe soy sauce - equal weigh of Malt syrup and water, 1/2 that weight of golden syrup and 1/4 the weight of salt. Mix 2 minutes, 90 degrees speed 2. (Eg I do 80g malt and water, 40g golden syrup and 20g salt)

Directions:

Cover noodles with water. If using pad Thai noodles, the water will need to be very warm, but for vermicelli use Luke warm water.

If you can't be bothered julienning all your vegetables, chop them in the TM for 1 second speed 4-5, but not the celery, it will be too wet. (I chop a brussel sprout so it is hidden).

Set the veggies aside. Chop the garlic for 3 seconds speed 6



Add oil and to get the chicken flavoursome and tender, cook for 10 minutes, 60 degrees, reverse, speed soft.  You can see from the picture that I just 1/2 breasts or use whole thighs at this point. If you increase the chicken, you will need to increase the oil.

While the chicken is infusing, julienne any vegetables you want to have long and thin.

Set chicken aside and cook oil for 2 minutes, Varoma, speed 2. Meanwhile, chop your chicken - fairly large chunks works best. When I do thinner strips the chicken can shred a little (see the picture in the Thermoserver below).
Add the chicken to the TM and gently fry for 4 minutes, Varoma, REVERSE, speed 1. Strain off any extra juices into a jug so it doesn't stew

Add your harder vegetables and herbs, and cook for a further 1.5 minutes, reverse, Varoma temp, speed 1. Or less time if the veggies are fine chopped.

Meanwhile, Mix the cornstarch with enough cold water to make a paste, and then add it to the strained off juices.

Strain off liquid again. Add soft vegetables and cook 1 minutes, reverse, Varoma speed 1. Meanwhile drain noodles.





















Put noodles and cooked vegetables and chicken into thermoserver. Put soy sauce, strained juices, stock and cashew butter into TM and cook on reverse still for 2.5 minutes, Varoma speed 3. Add sauce to thermoserver and toss it all through.