Food Friday: Chicken and Asparagus Sandwich

Chicken and Asparagus Sandwich is a family favorite for decades now, specially during the hot summer months. We usually open a can of asparagus but I now prefer steamed fresh. With a tablespoon or two of regular, not low-fat mayonnaise, and chunky cooked chicken breast, this sandwich always satisfies. Today for lunch, instead of baby dill pickles, I had it with strawberries dipped in sea salt. I love the sweet, slightly tart, and salty flavors with the sandwich. Yum!

The Daring Cooks: Homemade Noodles

ceci (chickpea flour) sagnarelli with zucchini blossoms, 

baby zucchini, and shaved Parmesan

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Späzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

Click here for the noodle and sauce recipes.

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Making noodles from scratch has always been an enjoyable activity for me. Thanks Steph for choosing homemade noodle for this month's challenge.

The one I made from the recipes given was the basic egg noodles. I made everything by hand because I don't have a pasta roller, and rolled as thin as possible which is surprisingly easy. Then I cut the noodles into thin strands using a pizza cutter. I sprinkled some flour on them, made the strands into nests while rolling the rest of the dough.

 

The noodles were boiled right away for a few minutes and mixed with stir-fried vegetables, grated ginger, rice wine, green onions, prawns, soy sauce, and sesame seed oil for a Chinese-style stir fried noodles. Delicious!

One of the noodle recipes I have wanted to make is the high protein ceci made with chickpea and all-purpose flour, eggs, and olive oil. These noodles are tender, nutritious, and yummy. I like them cut into 2 x ¾- inch strips called sagnarelli and simply served with vegetables sauteed in butter and sea salt then topped with Parmesan cheese; These are also good made into ravioli.

Chickpea Noodles

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup fine chickpea flour

3 eggs

¼ cup olive oil

• In a bowl, combine flours. Make a well in the center and add eggs and oil. Slowly mix in the flour until combined. Transfer on the counter and knead a few times until smooth. Wrap in plastic film and let rest on the kitchen counter for 1 hour before rolling into desired shapes.

fine chickpea flour, green chickpeas for ravioli filling

I also love rice noodles specially the rice sticks from the Philippines but it may be impossible to find a recipe on how to make them from scratch. However, there are recipes for Chinese and Thai flat rice noodles which have rice flour, tapioca starch, and corn starch. I used a combination of 50% rice flour and 25% each for the remaining flour for a chewy but soft consistency. The noodles are very good with sauteed Chinese broccoli seasoned with oyster sauce, soy sauce, chopped chive, a little hot chili oil, and sesame seed oil. Most of the recipes I found online cook the noodles by steaming but I find it is a lot quicker to cook the crepes on an oiled non-stick skillet. After the crepe has cooled I sprayed some water to make it less sticky, then rolled and sliced them less than ½ inch thick for the pad Thai. They should be sliced into 1-inch thick pieces for other Chinese recipes.

Flat Rice Noodles

1 cup rice flour

½ cup tapioca starch

½ cup cornstarch

¼ teaspoon sea salt

2½ cups water

2 tablespoons vegetable oil plus more for oiling the skillet

• Mix all ingredients in a bowl and let rest for 20 minutes. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat; brush with vegetable oil. Stir batter and pour about ¾ cup batter, swirling to completely cover the bottom of the skillet. Let cook until transparent. Loosen sides, invert onto a large plate and leave to cool.  Spray top with a little water, roll, and slice into desired thickness. Unroll and use immediately.

 

What can I say about the buckwheat noodles...they're just okay and not worth the effort to make at home, in my opinion. But check out the pillow-soft Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Chestnuts and Sage and easy as pie Quark Spätzle I made a few years back.

Food Friday: Fun Sticks

buco-pandan barquillos and Oreo Funstix

Oreo has come up with its own barquillo snack called Funstix. The crunchy sticks are chocolatey, have a very thin layer of cream inside, and not too sweet. I love them! They're sooo good with iced milk just like my long time favorite, buco-pandan barquillos.

Asparagus and Eggs

I make this simple and easy to make dish often when asparagus is still in season and not too pricey. I sometimes bake it in individual bowls or just cook it in a covered skillet on the stove top to avoid heating up the kitchen. I love that it has more vegetables than meat which are added to flavor the sauce and the vegetables. The usual meat added are Spanish chorizos and ham; the other vegetables are sweet peas and roasted sweet red bell pepper. I omitted the peas and added baby limas instead for added protein. If you can't find or don't like chorizos, other sausages are okay to use with this poached eggs and asparagus dish, but you have to omit the Spanish paprika though and substitute it with regular sweet paprika.

Asparagus and Eggs

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped Vidalia or sweet onion

2 cloved garlic, minced

2 pieces Spanish chorizo, sliced

1 cup cubed ham

2 teaspoons sea salt

ground black pepper, to taste

1 teaspoon pimentón (Spanish paprika)

1 pound asparagus, sliced into half inch pieces

1 large tomato, chopped

1 cup coarsely chopped roasted red bell pepper

1 cup frozen sweet peas

6 eggs

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

• In a large non-stick skillet, heat olive oil and saute garlic and onion for 3 minutes; add chorizo, ham, salt, pepper, and pimentón. Let cook on medium heat for 2 minutes. Stir in asparagus, tomatoes, and roasted red bell pepper and let simmer uncovered for 3 minutes. Stir in sweet peas. Make 6 wells and place one egg on each well. Sprinkle a few grains of sea salt on the eggs. Cover and let simmer until eggs are set but yolks are still soft. Remove from heat and drizzle all over with extra virgin olive oil. Serve immediately.