Chicken chow mein with bok choi & water chestnuts
20 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 2
About the recipe
If you're partial to a Chinese, you'll love my twist on this popular takeaway classic. I’ve used lovely fresh ingredients, and scaled back the oil and soy slightly to make it healthier. Also, the bok choi is a source of vitamin C, which our bodies need for pretty much anything and everything. Stir-frying is traditionally done in a wok, but if you don’t have one you can achieve similar results in a large heavy-based frying pan. Just make sure your pan is really hot before you start cooking, and all your ingredients are prepped in advance, because once you start, things move pretty quickly!
Ingredients
4cm piece of ginger
2 cloves of garlic
½-1 fresh red chilli
2 spring onions
½ a bunch of fresh coriander
1 bok choi
1 large higher-welfare skinless chicken breast
groundnut oil
100g free-range egg noodles
1 heaped teaspoon cornflour
1 x 220g tin of water chestnuts
2-3 tablespoons low-salt soy sauce
1 lime
Method
- Put a pan of water on to boil. Peel and finely slice the ginger and garlic, then finely slice the chilli. Trim and finely slice the spring onions.
- Pick the coriander leaves and put to one side, then finely chop the stalks. Halve the bok choi lengthways. Slice the chicken into finger-sized strips and lightly season.
- Preheat a wok or large frying pan to high and once it’s very hot, add a good lug of oil and swirl it around. Stir in the chicken and cook for a couple of minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
- Add the ginger, garlic, chilli, coriander stalks and half the spring onions. Stir-fry for 30 seconds, keeping everything moving round the pan quickly.
- Cook the noodles and bok choi in the boiling water for just 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add the cornflour, water chestnuts and their water to the wok and give it another good shake. Remove from the heat and stir in 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Halve the lime, squeeze the juice of one half into the pan and mix well.
- Drain the noodles and bok choi in a colander over a bowl, reserving the cooking water. Stir the noodles and bok choi into the pan, with a little cooking water to loosen, if necessary. Have a taste and season with more soy sauce, if needed.
- Plate up and serve sprinkled with the rest of the spring onions and coriander leaves, with lime wedges on the side for squeezing over.
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