My Vaguely Asian Noodles®

There are a lot of noodle dishes out there, a kind of mix tape of different recipes that presumably originate in Asia and have since been altered and messed with in American restaurants for years. There are two that I've had recently that I'm fond of, for different reasons. One is the pan Asian noodles from Kona Cafe at the Polynesian Village Resort at WDW. Mind you, I get it without the vegetables, but it's tasty stuff. Meanwhile, Napasorn, a Thai restaurant in downtown Orlando, has a pad see-ew that I'm very fond of. I like them for different reasons... the pan Asian is stir-fried with an interesting mix of what I imagine is brown sugar and soy sauce. Pad see-ew is more about the dark soy sauce with broccoli and bits of egg, and it uses flat rice noodles.

I started looking around at various recipes online because it's something I'd like to eat at home. I came up with the following, though this is revised from what I actually used on my first attempt. I didn't have peanut or sesame oil, so I used vegetable oil, and more of it. I didn't have egg noodles, so I used thin spaghetti. I didn't use fresh chicken either, which was my biggest mistake, because I had some precooked stuff from Schwan's in the freezer that I wasn't using for anything else. I didn't have rice vinegar, but I had some apple cider vinegar. Still, with the adjustments I've made, I think this could plausibly be delicious. I think I may consider adding broccoli to it as well, because it wouldn't kill me to get something green in me. Maybe add more garlic, too.

(revised April 2021)

Vaguely Asian Noodles

• 6 tbsp. soy sauce
• 4 tbsp. brown sugar
• 4 to 6 cloves of minced garlic
• 2 tbsp. rice vinegar
• 1 tbsp. sesame or peanut oil
• 2 tbsp. white wine
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 2 servings of noodles, cooked
• about 2 cups of broccoli
• 2 chicken breasts, cut into small chunks (or use 3 smaller breasts)
• sesame seeds

Cut the chicken into small chunks, then marinate for about two hours in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame or peanut oil and a little cap full of lime juice.

Boil the noodles with salt and a little oil, cook them until they're soft and drain. Whisk the other ingredients together (except sesame seeds, noodles, broccoli and chicken) to make sauce. Heat frying pan to medium heat. Put cooked noodles in frying pan, add sauce mixture, sesame seeds, chicken and broccoli. Toss noodles in frying pan using tongs as they soak up the sauce. Increase heat slightly if you want to caramelize the noodles (you should). Remove from heat when you're satisfied with the caramelization of the noodles, the chicken is cooked through, and serve immediately.