Chinese Orange Chicken with Crispy Noodles

I'm not really sure how this Chinese inspired dinner came together. I can only say that under these "C" confinement times, we were craving the flavours and crispiness of some of our favorite Chinese  dishes, Orange beef and Crispy noodles with vegg.

Since we had chicken thighs, not beef, my son began the quest in our fridge and cupboard for the scents and spices for a baked Orange chicken concoction. Some of the key ingredients for the perfumed basting liquid are: 1/2 cup to a cup of olive oil, (amount depending on how much sauce you are making) star anise, bay leaf, orange juice and strips of zest, whole dried chili pepper, crushed black peppercorn, garlic, ginger, brown sugar...all of this came together in a pan and reduced for a saucy chicken bake at 325F for about 1.5 hours. I think this could also be done on the stove top in a big pan, covered for part of the cooking.

My daughter loves, but loves crispy noodles. We all do. We have never prepared them this way, but it really worked out! Topped with any vegg you think would go well, we had fresh broccolini and a can of water chestnuts. We blanched the greens before incorporating them into the sauce below. I would consider using the frozen Asian vegg packs too which I suppose you could also blanch or microwave the get the freeze out.

Pre-heat the oven at 300F if you are making a lot so they keep warm while you make the oodles of crispy noodles in batches. 

We boiled dried "chow mien" or ramen noodles for a few minutes and then drained.

To crisp them up, you need quite a bit of canola oil and a hit of sesame oil in a large frying pan or wok and get it truly hot. Place a pancake kind of layer of noodles in the pan (spread them out), and once golden, flip them. Keep doing this until all are done.

In the meantime, make a sauce that you will cook in a pan, saute the vegg in, and eventually pour over the noodles. We used lots of Oyster sauce as the main base, soy sauce, sesame oil, pasty garlic that we mircroplaned. Minced ginger or lemongrass would also work well. Next time, we would consider thickening this with a bit of a cornstarch slurry when cooking.

Place your noodles on a platter and pour the saucy vegg on top. Garnish with fresh scallions and toasted sesame seed.

This entire feast was such a winner, we can't wait to make it again!