Friday April 12, 2013

Dinner for 1

My husband is out of town again tonight so there is no dinner party planned.  I have done them without him, actually his being away really is what gave birth to this whole idea, but it has been a crazy week so I decided just to do dinner for myself.  I was planning on Risotto.  I love risotto but I have never made it.  I believe it requires a lot of practice to get it right so I decided to attempt it for me in case it all goes pear shaped.

Turns out the weather went pear shaped and we have had a terrible ice storm.  The power is back on at my home but I have no desire to venture out to pick up mushrooms and abboro rice so it is onto Plan B.

Plan B:  Look in the fridge and cook something tasty with what I find.  Okay so I have some chowmein noodles in the fridge lets start there. What I came up with will feed way more than 1 but left over noodle dishes always get eaten up in my house.

1 package of chow mein noodles soaked in boiling water and drained according to package directions.

Now what else:

3 Tbsp minced garlic

3 Tbsp grated ginger

4 purple carrots julienne

an equal amount of wombok cabbage finely sliced

1 1/2 red peppers finely sliced

1 bunch of green onions, washed trimmed and cut in half then cut to the length of the carrots 

In the wok I heated 1 1/2 Tbsp of peanut oil and 1/2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil then I added in the garlic and ginger and stir fried until fragrant.

I then added the vegetables and stir fried for about 2 minutes.

Add 2 Tbsp of Sake, reduce heat and cover for about 2 minutes until vegetables are tender crisp.

Uncover and increase the heat again, add sauce (ingredients below) and stir constantly until the sauce thickens.  Toss in noodles and heat through. 

Sauce

2 cups vegetable broth

6 Tbsp oyster sauce

3 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp Sake

2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 tsp sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp corn starch

ground pepper

It TASTES way BETTER than it LOOKs

The vegetables looked great when cooked but the addition of the sauce allowed the colour of the purple carrots to blend with the sauce.  This resulted in a weird grey colour.  Then when I tossed in the yellow noodles it changed to a most unappealing grey/green colour.

EXCELLENT FLAVOURS!!!! Too bad it looks so awful.  I am glad I am only serving this to myself.

NOTE TO SELF:  Purple carrots are to be eaten raw or steamed and never added to sauce.  

Always good to learn new things.