“This noodle stir fry is off the charts when it comes to effort vs output.” This is an example of a fast meal you can make using Slow Cooker Crispy Chinese Shredded Chicken which is great for freezing. When it comes to fast meals, this is by far my best for effort vs output. These stir fry noodles are a complete meal with almost an entire bunch of Chinese broccoli tossed throughout the noodles and it honestly takes just 10 minutes to make using leftover Slow Cooker Crispy Chinese Shredded Chicken. And it’s not just the chicken that is used, I also use the braising liquid as the stir fry sauce. The braising liquid for the Slow Cooker Crispy Chinese Shredded Chicken is made using Chinese cooking wine (or sherry), light soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, garlic and sugar which are classic Chinese flavours. It then gets the benefit of the flavour and juices of a chicken slow cooking in it for 8 hours. So the sauce has some serious flavour, flavour that is impossible to replicate using sauces and pastes from jars. It is pure gold. And it probably costs all of $1.50 for the ingredients that go into it (a large bottle of Chinese cooking wine is $0.99 at my local Asian store!).
When it comes to Asian food, I can’t resist a bit of a kick so I added a generous squeeze of Sriracha sauce. But you can leave this out if you want to, or substitute with whatever your hot sauce of choice is. Or use fresh chillies or a chilli paste. Whatever rocks your boat! “Using a smashed garlic clove for the stir fry rather than mincing garlic is not only a great shortcut but also removes the risk of ending up with little bits of burnt garlic throughout your stir fry.” One tip that makes this slightly faster to cook than other stir fries is the way I get the garlic flavour into it. Rather than mincing garlic, I crush a clove with the side of my knife, slip the skin off then stir fry it to infuse the oil with the flavour. Just for 30 seconds or so. Then discard the garlic. This serves two purposes. Firstly, it is faster than finely chopping a garlic clove or saves on washing up a garlic crusher. Secondly, you won’t get little burnt bits of garlic in your stir fry. Because stir fries need to be cooked over very high heat (screaming hot, as high as your stove will go), depending on how heavy based your wok / fry pan is, minced garlic has a tendency to burn quickly. This results in little black bitter bits of garlic all through your stir fry. So I find that using a smashed garlic clove achieves the same flavour result with less failure risk and it’s more time efficient. 🙂
It’s hard to pick what I love best about these noodles. The slippery noodles coated in the sweet, salty sauce with a hit of chili, garlic and ginger? The shreds of chicken clinging to them that are crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside? The Chinese broccoli that blends so well into the noodles that no one would guess there’s almost a whole bunch in there? Hmm. Why be forced to pick? Oh. And how could I forget the kicker? Dinner on the table in 10 minutes. I would love to hear what you think! If you have any questions at all, just leave them in the comments section below and I’ll be sure to answer them. Happy cooking! – Nagi SaveSave
