Chicken and Swiss Chard Burmese Style

Every few days, I like to check the stats on my blog.  I usually have about a half dozen page views every day.  It's interesting to see where the traffic is coming from and what countries my readers are in.  The two posts that get the most views are the blog I did on Vietnamese Pork Chops and the one I did on Burmese Fried Noodles.  The Vietnamese Pork Chop recipe gets several views a day.  It seems a lot of folks are doing a google search for the recipe!

There are some serious food bloggers out there with thousands of followers and fans.  They post almost daily and their food photography is stunning!  Their dedication and enthusiasm makes me look like a slacker!  Never-the-less, I plod along, posting my mediocre food adventures and hoping somebody somewhere will read about them someday.  And even if they don't, I'm creating a collection of my family's favorite recipes that is much quicker and easier to access than pulling out cookbooks or note cards.

But a couple of days ago, when I checked my blog stats, I was stunned to see that overnight I had had 2,748 views to my post on Burmese Fried Noodles.  It seems all the visitors were referred by Stumbleupon.  How bizarre!  So, in an effort to repeat my one day success, I've decided to post another Burmese recipe.

This isn't an authentic Burmese recipe, however.  I recently acquired a cookbook called The Burmese Kitchen and while it has some pretty unusual recipes calling for odd ingredients, it also has a lot of very simple recipes.  One is for pork with Swiss chard and it calls for nothing more than some pork, Swiss chard, oil, garlic, and soy sauce.

My sister and her husband planted an amazing garden this year and she gave me a large bag full of Swiss chard last week.  Today, I decided to use some of it to make this simple dish.  I didn't have any pork, so I used chicken instead.  I also made a few other changes.  I don't know if my changes disqualify this as a Burmese recipe, but here's what I did.

stir frying the chicken and chard stems

Ingredients:
1/3 lb chicken breast, sliced in skinny pieces
2 t mushroom soy sauce (more or less to taste)
1 T canola oil
1 large clove garlic, chopped fine
pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
1 heaping cup Swiss chard stems, cut into 1 1/2 inch lengths
4 cups Swiss chard leaves, sliced into ribbons

Method:
1.  sprinkle chicken with 1 t soy sauce and let set for 30 minutes or so

2.  heat oil in frying pan over medium/high heat.  toss in garlic and pepper flakes and stir quickly for about one minute, until garlic begins to turn golden

3.  add chicken to pan.  stir and cook until chicken begins to darken

4.  toss in chard stems and remaining soy sauce. continue stirring and cooking for about another 3 - 5 minutes or until chard is tender.  (be careful with the mushroom soy sauce as it is pretty salty.  you can always add more, but you can't take away!)

5.  toss in chard leaves and stir until wilted.  if you want a little moisture, drizzle in about a T of water and let the steam help wilt the chard.

I'm trying to limit my carbs and I ate this for lunch today without rice.  It was delicious, but would probably be good with rice too!

Burmese Fried Noodles

Several months ago, I interviewed the owner of a local Burmese restaurant for an article I was writing for Examiner.  She shared with me her recipe for Burmese Fried Noodles and I have been making it ever since.  It's simple to make and so delicious.  My family loves it!  I would classify this recipe as an "Emmi" except that I believe Emily and Michelle would both complain about the amount of chopping involved!

This recipe is very versatile.  You can use any (or no) meat and any combination of vegetables that you have on hand.  (In the photo above, I used snow peas, red peppers, asparagus, bean sprouts and carrots.)  In my opinion, the four ingredients that MUST be used are garlic, oyster sauce, mushroom soy sauce, and Thai basil.  Other than that, mix it up!


Burmese Fried Noodles

Ingredients:

• 1 -2 Tablespoons oil
• 1 small onion, chopped into medium pieces
• 1 Tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 3 -4 dried red chili peppers (optional)
• 1/2 lb meat (cut into bite-sized pieces) or seafood (left-over or precooked meat can also be used)
• 2 Tablespoons Oyster sauce
• 8 ounces dried Chinese noodles prepared according to package directions and drained
• 4 - 5 cups vegetables - hard vegetables, such as carrots and broccoli should be blanched first to soften
• 3 Tablespoons Mushroom flavored soy sauce (more or less to taste)
• 2 eggs
• 3 scallions, cut into 2-inch chunks
• 1/4 cup Thai basil

Method: 

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Toss in the onion, garlic, and chili peppers. Stir and cook until garlic begins to turn brown.

2. Add in meat and Oyster sauce. Sprinkle in sugar. Stir and cook for about one minute or until meat is cooked.

3. Stir in noodles, vegetables and soy sauce. Stir and cook for about two minutes (or longer if vegetables were not previously blanched)

  

4. Push everything to one side and crack both eggs into the empty side of the pan. Break the yolks and let cook until beginning to set. Use tongs to pick up the noodles and place over the eggs. Let them cook this way for a minute or so and then stir everything together.

  

5. Sprinkle scallions and basil over the top and serve.