Thursday, January 13, 2011

Chewy chow mein - a new ingredient goes awry


I started off my resolution to cook with five new ingredients with a recipe for vegetable chow mein. The recipe served two purposes - the first was to kick off the new year by eating some more vegetables to make up for all the junk food I ate through the holidays - and the second was to try out a new ingredient, per Resolution No. 12.

I've cooked with plenty of noodles before, mostly the kinds of dry pasta available in the dry goods aisle. Angel hair, spaghetti, penne, ziti, orzo ... get the picture. I have never cooked with chow mein noodles, which are made with a different ingredients than pasta. I bought a couple packages of fresh noodles that were in the organic refrigerator section, near the tofu and organic polenta. The directions from the recipe and on the packaging were simple enough. I was supposed to add the noodles to boiling water, separating them and cooking for three to four minutes.

But when my mom and I put the noddles into the water, instead of separate apart, they clumped together into a ball of gooey mess. Or more accurately, several balls of gooey mess. I thought we might be able to salvage the noodles by tossing them into the saute pan with the vegetables and sauce. The noddles just stayed stuck together, but worse than that they were starchy and not very palatable. The sauce, which included ginger, garlic, hoisin sauce, chicken broth and soy sauce, and the vegetables tasted great so we just picked those out and left behind the noodles.

I would try the recipe again without the noodles, or perhaps using dry noodles. I might even stop by an Asian food store in hopes are finding something better than I can get in the limited section at the grocery store.

One ingredient down, four to go.

Photo by Melissa Flores

Chow mein includes a mix of vegetables.

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