I love hoisin sauce. I think something I made long ago called for it because there's been a half full jar of it in my fridge for a very long time. I wanted to use it before it got too far past the "best by" date so I turned to the food network website and found this Chow Mein recipe from, strangely, Giada de Laurentiis.
The hardest thing about this recipe was cutting the carrots into matchstick-size pieces. I only had baby carrots, so I'm not sure if this made it harder or easier than a regular sized carrot, but I just took my time and tried not to slice my fingers.
The rest was super easy. I put the carrots and some frozen french-cut green beans into boiling water for one minute, then I took them out with a strainer and put them in cold water.
The pot of water went back onto the burner and when it quickly came back to a boil, I put a package of wide lo mein noodles in for 5 minutes. While that was going, I minced some garlic and fresh ginger.
I'm not sure if it was because the water had already been used (it's the only difference I can think of) but the water got really foamy and kept boiling over. It was really more annoying than anything else because I kept having to leave my cutting board to babysit the boiling noodles.
Once the noodles were done, I drained them, ran some cold water over them, and patted them dry with a paper towel. Then the noodles, garlic, and ginger went into a wok with some hot canola oil. I stirred for 3 minutes like the recipe said, but those noodles never got the slightest bit brown. Then I added the veggies and let those reheat for a couple of minutes. Then I added a mixture of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, vegetable broth, and honey, and let it thicken up for a couple of minutes.
By this point I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture. Thankfully, Brett eats slower than I do and had a reasonable amount left on his plate.
It tasted good! I never realized that hoisin sauce has a little spicy kick to it, but I liked it. The only thing I might do differently next time is put a tad bit less sauce. It was a little bit overwhelming. All in all, I think we have a keeper! I love it when that happens!
2 comments:
I never quite figured out how to cut matchsticks from carrots either. As for the noodles, it seems like my water boils over all the time as well and I just accepted it. So when doing other prep work, I usually assign Paul the task of watching the noodles. I'm going out to buy some hoisin sauce to we can incorporate this into our meal rotation as well because the dish looks wonderful!
Hey Darlene! It's always nice to hear that I'm not the only one with a particular problem :) Brett may be the official noodle watcher from now on! Good to hear from you!
Post a Comment