I failed.
Yes, audience, I failed. I made a dish up from scratch in my head, and it was edible, sure, but it wasn’t tasty and delicious. It was… just… edible.
Since then, I have figured out what I did wrong (but haven’t had time to try making it again with the corrections), so I will present you now with the receipe that FAILED, WHY it failed, and WHAT TO DO to make it WORK. 
- ho fun noodles
- minced garlic
- 3-4 Chinese cabbage leaves, sliced
- soy suace
- (boneless, skinless) chicken thigh
- 1-2 ribs of celery, chopped
I began by marinating the chicken in the same combination I’ve always done: soy sauce, dash of garlic, corn starch, and a bit of sugar. I cooked the noodles according to the package directions (be careful if you use these noodles- I’d never used them before this, they were a little less than $1 a package and I wanted to try making something new, so I got them- they stick to themselves like mad, so keep stirring the entire time you cook them, or be like me and wind up draining them and running cold water over the whole lot while you stand there peeling them apart. YES, I did that, because I thought to myself “I don’t want to eat clumps of noodles and then hate this dish because of that; if it’s bad I want to know it’s not because of the NOODLES”)- they come out very smooth and slippery. Oh, and when the noodles were done, I blanched my veggies in the water real quick. I like my veggies crispy so I put them in, covered it up, brought it to a boil, and then took them out and drained them on the side.
After a fair amount of time had gone by for the chicken to marinate, I began to cook it the same way I cook the meat for shepherd’s pie or anything- (hot pan, cook till almost completely cooked, splash more soy sauce, add slurry, bring to a boil, now you’ve got gravy with meat, add veggies, etc.). After I’d added the veggies, I dropped the noodles in, one handful at a time, and stirred them together. (I was thinking about frying the noodles separately, and then adding the sauce on top, but it seemed messy and the noodles felt like the kind that would just stick in a big mess in the pan, so I skipped that.)
The noodles quickly started to absorb the sauce, which was fine.
When I plated it up, I noticed that it didn’t look much like what I guess it’d be based off- “sup chow ngau hau” (literally, wet fried beef broad noodles). Hmm. I began eating it, and though it wasn’t horrible or awful at all, it was that touch too salty, and very garlicky (which was odd, because normally my dishes with the same amount of garlic don’t taste that strongly of garlic). The veggies were good, the chicken was the way it always is…
It was just too salty and tasted too strongly “Italian”. I frowned and dialed my mother.
Apparently, I should have added more sugar and instead of making the gravy out of soy sauce and slurry, before adding the slurry, I was meant to add “ho-yau” (oyster sauce, literally) to make it sweeter than salty.
So, E for effort, but C- for taste. (And there’s nothing wrong with Italian noodles, but that’s not what I was going for, so it’s still a failure.)
Next time… I must go and pick up some of these sauces/seasonings from the Asian market. My kitchen is completely under-stocked.
Leave a Reply