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.

Introducing the Emmi

Asian beef and noodles


My daughter has a couple of friends who I recently invited over for an international potluck.  They confessed to me that they had gone to my web site to find a recipe to cook and bring to the gathering, but that all my recipes looked too complicated.  I was stunned!!  I will admit that there are several rather involved recipes on my site, but I also have many, many simple and easy to prepare recipes.  Don't I??

I guess it's possible that because I so love to cook and have been doing it for years, what seems simple to me might be a bit involved for the occasional cook.  So, I am going to make an effort to regularly post recipes that any inexperienced cook can make (as long as they have a taste for adventure) with just a smidgen of effort.  I'm going to call these recipes Emmi Recipes (and they will be tagged as such) in honor of Emily and Michelle, my daughter's culinarily-challenged friends.

The first recipe in this collection is Asian beef and noodles.  You have to be willing to purchase a few ingredients that you probably don't normally keep in your kitchen.  If you are willing to do this one small thing, then this recipe will go together quickly and easily and the pay-off is delicious!

One of the unusual ingredients is Udon noodles.  Many grocery stores carry these now in their Asian section.  These small, individual serving packets of fresh noodles come with a seasoning packet for making soup.  They look like this:

Another unusual ingredient is Asian chili paste.  This stuff is really good and lasts forever in the refrigerator so you should keep some around anyway.  This can also be purchased in the Asian aisle of most supermarkets.  It looks like this:

The last unusual ingredient is bok choy.  Buy baby bok choy, if you can find it.  Many supermarkets, such as Meijer's, carry this.  But if you live in a city that has an Asian grocery store (and Emily and Michelle do!) you should go there.  It's going to be fresher since they have a much quicker rate of turn-over and the price is considerably cheaper! 

bag of baby bok choy from Saigon

With one quick trip to the Asian market, you can buy all the things you need for this recipe except the meat.

So then.... here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
2 T oil (such as canola or peanut)
2 lb chuck or English roast, cut into small chunks (1 1/2 inch pieces)
4 green onions, sliced
8 cloves garlic, mashed
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup water
1/4 c plus 2 T soy sauce
2 t ginger powder
1 T Asian chili paste
2 packages Udon noodles
4 cups bok choy, sliced (if using large bok choy, cut into 1 inch pieces)
1/2 cup minced cilantro (or more, to taste)

Method:
1.  Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Sear the meat with the onions and garlic. You may need to do this in batches if your pan isn't large enough.  In this case, add the onions and garlic with the final batch.  To sear properly, the meat should not be crowded in the pan.

2.  Transfer the meat, onions, and garlic to a crockpot and add the broth, water, soy sauce, ginger, and chili paste.  Stir well to combine.  Cover and cook on LOW for 7 hours or on HIGH for 3 hours.  (you can also do this on the stove top by combining everything in a soup pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer.  Let simmer, covered, until the meat is tender.  Maybe about 1 1/2 hours)

3.  Add the noodles (noodles only, throw the flavoring packets away) and stir to combine.  Then add the bok choy, stir, and continue cooking for about 15 minutes or until tender.

4.  Before serving, stir in cilantro.

(Note:  feel free to add a third package of noodles if you like less broth and more noodles!)

If you try this recipe, please leave a comment.  I would like to know if it turns out as easy and delicious for others as it does for me!

Easy and Delicious!!

Calhoun Street.....

This morning, I went hunting for morels with my sister and her fiance.  After an unsuccessful hour of sloshing through the wet and soggy woods, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch at Mahnin on Calhoun St.

My sister and I had both eaten there several times, but it was the first time for her fiance, Todd.  Mahnin resembles nothing so much as a whole in the wall.  It's tiny and shabby and the English on the menu seems to be an afterthought since most of the customers are Burmese.  We were given small English menus to look over but it was hard not to feel jealous of the customers who could read Burmese as there was a white board mounted at the front of the restaurant written in Burmese that apparently had items on it not shared on the English menu.  Several customers were enjoying dishes that didn't resemble any of the descriptions on my limited menu!

My husband took me to Mahnin for the first time and he told me that the cook/owner was a well renowned cook in her home country.  One of the things I like about the restaurant is that although the menu is limited, if you describe for the server what you would like to eat, he'll go back in the kitchen and see if the cook has the ingredients to make it. 

The menus that they gave us today had a few new items on them and I decided I wanted to try the sea bass in chili sauce.  The server looked a little confused until I pointed to it on the menu and then he told me that they aren't quite prepared to serve that one yet!  So I settled for some spicy noodles with pork and vegetables.  I also ordered a spicy seafood salad to share among the table.  Todd ordered some shrimp rolls for the table.

The appetizers were delicious!  I'd had the seafood salad before.  It had come highly recommended by my husband and it really is good.  It has crab, squid, octopus, mango, mushrooms, onions, peppers, mint, cilantro, peanuts, cashews and some other Asian vegetables glistening brightly in a spicy dressing.  The shrimp rolls were good also and had crab and shrimp wrapped in seaweed and then in spring roll wrappers and deep fried.  They were served with two sauces; one sweet and one spicy.

The meals came with small cups of soup; clear broth with cellophane noodles and slivers of chicken.  Todd told the server he wanted a soup with lots of stuff in it.  The server brought him a bowl filled with seafood and vegetables in a spicy sour broth.  My spicy noodles turned out to be big, thick rice noodles all gummy and delicious with loads of vegetables and pork.

The food was great, but the highlight for me was listening to Todd moan and groan in delight over his meal.  He kept saying things like, "This is the BEST soup I have ever eaten!"   and  "oh wow!  yum!  mmmmmm.... these shrimp rolls are incredible." 

Calhoun Street is my favorite street in Fort Wayne.  It has several Asian markets within about a 6 block area.  These little grocery stores carry all kinds of things that you can't find anywhere else; like whole red snapper, octopus, all kinds of seafood and sea vegetables, sauces and noodles (fresh, frozen, and dried), unusual produce, and frogs.....

While traditional grocery stores charge upwards of $2 for a small package of herbs, you can buy bags of fresh mint, basil, and fresh curry leaves for just pennies at an Asian grocery.

Also along Calhoun St. you'll find small, family owned ethnic restaurants serving food you can't get anywhere else in the city.  There is Saigon, the Vietnamese restaurant whose speciality is big bowls of steaming noodle soups.  There's Mahnin, serving Burmese, Thai and other Asian dishes.  And there is a place called The Burmese Tea Room that serves curries and steaming pots of tea.

If you live in Fort Wayne and haven't visited Calhoun Street recently, you should make it a point to check things out!

By the way, while I was at Mahnin, I saw an announcement about an event at the Indiana Tech Cinema Center (on Washington Blvd.) tomorrow that I'm going to try and attend.  There will be free Burmese-themed refreshments served during a pre-screening reception for "Burma VJ; reporting from a closed country."  This film was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary in 2010.  It was totally shot with hand held cameras that were then smuggled out of the country.  After the movie there will be a discussion with a question and answer period.  The object of the event is to educate the community on the Burmese living and working in our city.  Fort Wayne is home to the largest population of Burmese living outside of Burma.  For more information about the event, click this link.

Noodles! Noodles! Noodles!

I was wondering what the difference is between noodles and pasta so I looked both words up in a variety of dictionaries.  In almost every case, a noodle was described as a strip of unleavened egg dough and pasta was described as a flour and egg dough made from semolina.  Really?  Can they be serious?  I find these definitions ridiculously limiting in their scope!  What about noodles made from rice, or mung beans, or cassava?  What about gluten-free pasta or pasta made from soybeans? 

What about all these noodles............

..........package after package of noodles, and almost half of them don't have any regular flour or semolina!

The other day I was in the mood for pasta, today I wanted noodles.  I'm still not sure what the difference is, but here's how I sort of think of it:  I think of pasta as being used in European dishes and noodles as being used in Asian dishes.  And I particularly love rice noodles.  They're slurpy and delicious and can be gummy or slightly chewy.

Last week I was flipping through t.v. channels and I stumbled across Martha Stewart.  I've never watched her show since I've always thought I don't like her.  "How can you not like her when you've never seen her show?" you ask.....  I don't know.  I guess I don't like her image as portrayed in the media.  She seems a bit stuffy to me.  But anyway... this was In the Kitchen With Martha Stewart, or something like that, and she had a guest on who authored one of my favorite cookbooks, Hot Sour Salty Sweet.  If you don't already own this cookbook, you need to stop reading right here and run out directly to buy it.  Or, better yet, open a second browser window and order it from amazon.com.

This guy, Jeffrey Alford, and his wife, Naomi Duguid, spent a couple of years traveling around southeast Asia eating great food and collecting recipes.  Actually, browsing through this book is sort of a love/hate thing for me.  The cookbook is amazing, but it's impossible for me to browse through the book and not feel that little green monster climbing up my back.  I wish I had been the one to eat my way through Asia and write about it!

Anyway, this book is filled with gorgeous pictures from their travels, fascinating information about the evolution of food traditions, interesting anecdotes, and wonderful recipes.  The recipe Jeffrey was showing Martha how to make was one out of his cookbook that I had already tried.  Today, it sounded like just what I was in the mood for so off I went to buy the ingredients missing from my kitchen.  I actually had all the pantry ingredients but had to buy the baby bok choy and the pork butt.

Here's my somewhat modified version of the recipe for Noodles with Greens and Gravy

1 lb wide dried rice noodles
peanut oil
1/4 c. minced garlic
1 lb thinly sliced pork butt or shoulder
2 t sugar plus a pinch
1 1/2 to 2 lb baby bok choy
2 T fermented soybean paste (mashed, if needed)
2 T soy sauce
3 T fish sauce
3 T rice vinegar
1 t pure chili powder (or to taste.  I use Indian chili powder)
2 1/2 c. chicken broth
2 T cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 c. water
chopped peanuts


Soften the rice noodles in hot water and then quickly pan fry them in a T of peanut oil.  Do this in two batches so you can press them against the wok as they cook.  Remove the noodles and set aside.

Mix together the soybean paste, soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, 2 t sugar and chili powder.

Next fry the garlic in another T of peanut oil until it starts to brown (usually, cookbooks tell you not to let garlic brown as it will turn bitter, but Alford claims that golden brown garlic is a Thai tradition and actually, it has a great flavor!) then throw in the thinly sliced pork and add a pinch of sugar.  Cook until it starts to lose it's pink color and then toss in the bok choy.  Press the bok choy against the wok and cook until it starts to wilt.

Dump in the sauce ingredients.  Stir and mix.  Add the chicken broth and bring to a quick boil.  Cover the wok and let everything steam for a minute or so.  Remove the cover and add the cornstarch slurpy.  Stir and let simmer until the sauce thickens.

To serve, place some noodles on a plate or in a large bowl and ladle the sauce over top.  Sprinkle with fresh cracked pepper and peanuts and dig in.  This dish is so good.....really!  And once you have all the ingredients assembled, it goes together quickly!