CHOW MEIN WITH BAKED CHICKEN

Since childhood, rice wasn't really my favorite carbohydrate. More often than not, I relied on noodles and flat breads than rice. Maybe one of the biggest reasons why I never gained too much, despite being a chubby girl. And also why I started gaining soon after my rice intake increased (yes, I gained a lot!!). Funny how noodles jog up some of my fondest memories. There was this one time when I had to stay back in Bangladesh, while my mom and my sisters were visiting my dad in Saudi Arabia. I clearly remember how petrified my uncle was when he noticed I barely ate rice. He actually called up my mom in Saudi Arabia to ensure I am not starving myself. I could tell how worried he was and why not, it is not the most common thing for a Bangladeshi to not have rice at all, for over a week. So, moving away from my memories and fast forwarding to now, I barely have noodles or anything of that sort. With all the work throughout the day, rice paired with a bhaji seems to be the easiest and quickest meal to cook, at least for me. Recently, my hubby was craving chow mein and there you have it, a reason to try something out again.

Chow mein is basically stir-fried noodles with vegetables. So first off, I started prepping my vegetables. This time I used frozen vegetables and since I like my vegetables a little softer, I boiled my vegetables beforehand for about 5-6 minutes with a pinch of salt. Oh! I did make sure to have baby corns in my frozen vegetable mix. Even though I don't enjoy corn much, but I absolutely love baby corns. Next in another pot, I started cooking my spaghetti, again, with a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. I did throw in a few cheese raviolis, don't know why I wanted a touch of cheese in my chow mein. While my vegetables and noodles were cooking, I took out a bunch of shrimps to be the protein of my chow mein and seasoned it with salt and red chili powder. Once I had everything set, I took a big pan on high heat (although I wish I had a wok) and added in some olive oil. Next, I added in minced garlic and the shrimps. When the shrimps started getting the beautiful red color, I added in ketchup and soya sauce followed by the vegetables, the noodles, and the raviolis. I, then, stir fried it for about 7-8 minutes before serving it. To go with the chow mein, I also wanted to have baked chicken. So I defrosted some chicken pieces and added in my seasonings: salt, red chili powder, mixed spices, and ginger paste. After marinating them for about 10 minutes, I coated them with a mixture of breadcrumb and cornmeal. I, then, put them in a baking pan and baked it for about 1.5 hours in 475 degree Fahrenheit. Basically, I checked every 30 minutes if my chicken was cooked and trusted my instincts, which didn't side with me much that day. There were some very fatal mistakes which I somehow managed to recover from. First, I didn't use egg before the coating of breadcrumb and cornmeal and as a result, the coating didn't stick too well which got worsened by my next mistake. While my oven was preheating, I decided to use butter and layered a generous amount of butter on the chicken. What happened next was when the butter melted, the breadcrumb, cornmeal, and butter all combined together to become a mush! No different from mashed potatoes, what a luck! And I had no idea what to do, so I just left it like that and prayed for things to work out. The final end result was not as bad and paired well with the star dish, chow mein. Luckily chow mein stole all the thunder and my mistakes with chicken got covered under its shadow.

Ingredient:

Chowmein:

2 cups mixed vegetables

1 packet spaghetti

6 pcs ravioli

1 cup shrimps

0.5 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp ketchup

2.5 tbsp soya sauce

Baked chicken:

1 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp mixed spices

2 tsp ginger paste