Chicken Mee

I bought 3 chicken carcasses yesterday morning and made stock with it. And I spent a good 40 minutes picking off the bits of chicken on the bones-there was quite a lot of it. And I decided to cook a dish with it last night. I wanted something fast and simple. So I made Chicken Mee.

Mee is the Malaysian word for fat yellow noodles. Meehoon is the word we use for thin noodles, like rice vermicelli. I explained the difference to Wyld Man last night-and he said “I’ll call you MEE now, and MEEHOON after the baby comes.” Hrumph!

Anyways. These were the ingredients I used.

Carrots, Celery, Dark Soy Sauce, Chili Sauce, Oyster Sauce, Eggs, Shredded Chicken, Garlic, Dried yellow noodles, salt and pepper

First, I boiled some water with which to soften the mee.

Setting the kettle boiling

Put the dried mee in a bowl.

Pour boiling water over the mee

And leave for 5 minutes till softened. Different brands will take different times to soften.

I peel and slice my carrots lengthwise. They look like canons ready to fire!

Cut quarter lengthwise again till no more than 1 cm in width.

Turn 90 degrees and chop into squares. Like in the frozen vegies pack.

Wash anc cut the celery sticks where the stems branch out.

Cut the the bottom stems lenthwise like the carrots

Turn 90 degrees and chop

By this time the mee would have been sufficiently softened. Loosen up with a fork.

Drain.

The brand of oyster sauce that I use-Ayam Brand, which means Chicken brand in Malay.

Add about 2 big tablespoons.

Dark Soy Sauce.

Wyld  Man loves this sauce….bottle. He keeps bugging me to finish it so that he can use it for beer bottling. It’s a crown seal you see. It means that the you can use a beer cap on it repeatedly. Most glass bottles are screw caps which isn’t ideal for beer. But I’ll blog about beer another time.

Add 2 big tablespoons.

Chilli Sauce.

Mae Ploy brand is a brand I’ve heard mentioned in cooking blogs. This sauce has lots and lots of chili seeds in it. But it’s not really hot. Just a thick sweetness with a teeny bite.

2 big tablespoons. Maybe I should just abbreviate this to 2BT

Mix it up and thoroughly coat the mee with the sauces.

Have a taste and correct whatever is missing.

Heat the wok/pan with some oil.

As I’ve explaing before, I would normally use a wok. But I have electric stovetops instead of gas, and my wok is not completely flat-bottomed. So I elect to use a big pan instead. Works just as well.

At the same time, heat some oil in a non-stick pan.

Break a couple of eggs into a bowl and...

...stir

Pour it into the non-stick skillet. Leave to set at low heat.

Take a teaspoon of garlic.

You can use freshly cut and minced garlic. But I’m lazy.

Add to the oil.

Add the garlic before the oil gets too hot, or the garlic will get burned.

I add my shredded chicken.

You can substitute this with any meat-just be sure to cut it bite-sized or use a mince. Minced pork or diced chicken will do as well.

Add the celery and stir.

Add a dash of oyster sauce

Here you can add a bit of chicken stock or water-half a cup, to prevent the bottom from burning.

Add the carrots, and a dash of dark soy sauce.

Add more stock or water-another half cup and let simmer a bit with the cover on to soften the vegies.

Add the mee and stir with two forks to avoide breaking the mee into small bits

Remember the eggs from before? Break them up and add them in.

If you want your mee a bit wet or saucy, add a bit more water/stock and cover till boiling.

Take off the heat and serve.

Yum!

Wyld Man likes MEE!!