Galley Goodness
Matt's Musings
The Bahamas
Matt's Marvelous Mouthwatering Mosels on Monday: Dan-Dan Noodles
Lucy and I love spicy, flavorful food that isn’t good for your digestion or your holding tanks. Thai, Indian, Szchewan, Yum, Yum, Yum! Back in Zombieland (you know, where the 9-5 working folks live) we would frequent P.F. Chang’s China Bistro for work lunch getaways. My favorite dish (which has since been removed from the menu for putting too many folks on blood pressure meds) was always their Dan Dan Noodles.
Moving on the boat, I always liked making things like Dan Dan or Pad Thai, but I struggled to keep the ships stores topped off with those yummy noodles found only in the poshest of ethnic food supermarket aisles. And then it came to me like a burp of methane from a holding tank vent: Ramen!
The next revelation came soon after: why use your precious, expensive fresh chicken breast up when this recipe requires it to be ground up and drowned in spicy, salty saucy goodness? That’s right folks, get out the can opener because we’re going where no food blog has gone before: canned chicken!
Sooooo Ramen? Canned Chicken? This has got disgusting bottom of the pantry boat food written all over it, right? Wrong. You’ll be thanking me after you try this. Maybe not your holding tanks, but you will be!
This recipe will take about 30 minutes from clean kitchen to mouthwatering morsels and feeds two hungry sailors (as long as they are drinking as well).
Dan-Dan Noodles
The ingredients:
1 5oz can of chicken
2 tablespoons veg oil
1 package Ramen noodles with seasoning (Oriental or Chicken flavor)
1 1/2 tablespoons garlic, minced
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ginger, minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons chicken broth concentrate or 1 chicken bullion cube
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons Siracha sauce (chili-garlic sauce)
1 cup of vegetables (broccoli, carrots, celery, whatever you have aboard!)
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water
1 cup cucumber, julienned
1/2 cup sprouts
The process:
Stir fries move quickly, so make sure to do all the prep work before starting the stove. It’s good for saving precious propane too!
Prepare the Ramen without the seasoning. Drain noodles, reserve 3/4 cup of the cooking water and set aside.
To the reserved cooking water, add chicken broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, 1/2 the Ramen seasoning and the Siracha. Set aside.
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| Ingredients: noodles, sauce, garlic, sprouts |
Heat oil in wok or saute pan. Add vegetables and stir fry until just tender about 3 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Add garlic, ginger and green onion to the pan, being careful to not let them burn, about 1 minute! Add sauce and bring to a simmer. Add cornstarch (slurried) and stir until thick, about 1 minute. Add chicken and broccoli and simmer for another minute or two.
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| Stir-fry the veggies |
Top noodles with chicken sauce. Garnish with cucumber and sprouts. You do have your own, fresh sprouts on board, don’t you?
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| We don't have cucumber on board at the moment, but crisp carrots will do! |
4 comments
Thanks to your inspiration I have officially purchased my first ever can of chicken! I'm nervous & excited! Don't think I'll go as "overboard" as the bean sprouts...maybe substitute canned bamboo shoots in keeping with the "bottom of the pantry" theme! Exactly how many drinks did you have when inventing this meal?
ReplyDeleteThe cool thing is, if you start cooking like us, you could just go to Wal-Mart once a month, stock up on ramen and canned chicken, and not have to grocery shop all the time! We're so guarded of our booze supply that we are light-weights now, just a whiff of grape juice and we're singing roll out the barrel.
DeleteOkay, now I'm hungry!
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonderful thing to live with someone who likes to cook!
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