20 – Singapore Noodles

When I received my newest cookbook this past Christmas, “Save with Jamie”, I was instantly excited to have even more of Mr. Oliver’s recipes at my fingertips. As I started perusing the recipe book, however, I found what seemed to be a very fundamental issue, at least for me. That issue was Oliver’s emphasis on using leftover proteins for a large percentage of the dishes featured.

Throughout the book he has what he calls “Mothership” recipes, for meals such as roast chicken, beef brisket, or roast pork. It’s the leftover meat from these recipes that he then requires for a few subsequent meals. Obviously the use of these meats is a suggestion so that, as per the title of the book, the home cook can “Save with Jamie”, and isn’t entirely necessary. That being said, I’m a stickler for rules.

Could I really make a recipe that calls for leftover roast chicken, and yet simply fry up some chicken breasts to use as a substitute? For me, the answer was simple – if it calls for homemade roast chicken, then that’s what I’m going to use.

Before. Rubbed with salt and pepper, caressed with oil, stuffed with a lemon, and laid on a bed of carrots, onions, and garlic.

After. Like, 1 1/2 hours and 400 degrees farenheit after the first picture. At this point I had to stop myself from simply having a dinner that consisted entirely of roast chicken.

I figured I’d roast two chickens, and then explore some of the other meals Oliver used these “Mothership” leftovers for.

For this particular recipe, I not only needed pre-cooked chicken, but also a couple ingredients I had little-to-no experience with: cabbage and vermicelli. It also called for mushrooms, which I am not usually a fan of. Thankfully, the wide range of ingredients meant that some came to the forefront of the dish (like the chilli peppers, noodles, chicken, shrimp, and peanuts), while others (like the mushrooms) provided only subtle hints of their presence, improving the dish behind the scenes.

If there’s one thing that I would have done differently, it would have been including only one chilli pepper instead of two. By the time I was halfway into my meal, I was running for a glass of milk. Usually I’m fussy about milk and expiry dates, but today that didn’t stop me (it was only expired as of today, but that would usually cause me to turn up my nose and throw it out).

Alright, enough talk – on to the pictures…

Olive oil, ground pork, garlic, ginger, spices, chicken and shrimp, oh my!

In this recipe, the chicken came before the egg. Can you guess which side of the pan it’s going on?

You’re so clever!

Skipping ahead a bit due to a blurry photo or two prior to this, here is the final product. You can sort of see Jamie Oliver’s version in the background. I’m pretty sure he skewed the amount of noodles in his picture to emphasize the proteins, but I won’t hold it against him.

Anyways – happy cooking!