Silly Commuter Recipes

itboffin

Inspired by the latest post by frinkmakesyouthink in "Today I will be mostly eating" thread, how about somewhere to post your favorite recipes, even better why not share you pre / post ride meal ideas.

Today I had lemon chicken with aubergine and noodles. I only eat this well at the weekends when I'm with my girlfriend though!

Start with the aubergine. Easy peasy this - cut it in half, then score a 1cm deep criss-cross pattern on the flesh. Rub in a bit of oil (I used toasted sesame oil for this asian recipe) and some salt. Then I smeared them with a bit of sri racha (very hot garlic and chilli) sauce (Flying Goose is my favoured brand), but sweet chilli or just plain work very well. Put the halves cut-side-up in a medium oven until they're slightly charred around the edges and very soft. This should take 35-45 mins; when they're done just turn off the oven and leave them in there to keep warm.

Meanwhile make the lemon chicken:
Add water, sugar, soy sauce, the juice of a lemon, a tiny bit of flour, diced fresh garlic and ginger to a pan on a very low heat. If you have some sherry it'd be great to add a glug, too.

Cut chicken breast into strips and poach very gently in this sauce with the lid on until cooked through (20 mins or so). Remove chicken to a plate. Turn up the heat on the sauce so it's gently simmering with the lid off

Now get some flour in a bowl and grate some of the lemon rind into it, add a bit of salt and pepper (or a bit of celery/garlic salt if you have any). In another bowl, crack a couple of eggs and whisk them up.

Get your chicken strips and a spare oven rack. Dip the chicken in the flour, then the egg, then the flour again and rest for a few minutes on the rack. Then into egg and flour, rest again. Then into egg and finally flour!! This might sound like a bit of a faff but it really does make an excellently crispy crunchy batter. There's no rush to cook these, if you feel pressed for time you can leave them on the rack for a bit, or even make them in advance and keep them in the fridge. If you want to put things on your noodles (like diced chillis or spring onions) now is a good time to dice them up.

Then I cooked up some cheap supermarket noodles, drained them, put a bit of water in the pan and a couple of handfuls of spinach, back on the heat with the lid on. The spinach wilts down in less than a minute. At this point I divided up the noodles onto plates, put the spinach on top, plated up the aubergine and put the plates in the still-warm oven to keep warm.

If you have a deep fryer, turn it up to 180 or so. If not, get a heavy frying pan and put a good amount of oil in - 1cm depth is plenty. Quickly fry the chicken for around 1 minute in the fryer or a little longer in the pan (flicking or spooning oil on top to make sure it's well cooked) or until the batter is golden brown and crispy. Remove and drain on some kitchen paper.

Divide the chicken onto the plates and sprinkle on any toppings for the noodles (I had some spring onions, sesame seeds, cashew nuts and a bit of soy sauce). The lemon sauce in the pan should now have reduced and be quite syrupy - spoon this over the chicken and serve!

I didn't bother making dessert Wink

NGale

my own homemade cottage pie or rocket and blue cheese salad

I really can't cook but even i can cope with those. Surprisingly Jake will eat them instead of dissapear up to the college for a plate of food. :roll:

itboffin

<place holder for chicken ring stinger curry>

prawny

Peanut butter and chocolate spread on toast.

Let the toast cool a bit or the peanut butter goes wierd.

Yummy 8)

Can you tell my wife does most of the cooking?