Chicken Hakka Noodles

This is all thanks to Finely Chopped. I have tried making Hakka Noodles before at home and i have always managed to make the noodles squishy. I have also, at times, managed to make the noodles too bland or too salty. This time I was taking no chances and hence I wrote a quick message to Finely and asked him how to boil my noodles. Al dente prompt came the answer. With that and one of the recipes from his blog, I began. The steps I have followed are from Finely's recipe.

I decided I would make chicken hakka noodles after I did not get any other fresh meats while I was out shopping. I had already bought the noodles earlier on so it had to be noodles for dinner and nothing else.

I bought boneless chicken. I cut about 250 gms of it and boiled them. I added no masalas. Once they were done I shred them and set them aside. I cut one capsicum, one carrot and a few sprigs of spring onion and set all this aside.



I boiled my noodles al dente which basically means leaving them a little 'kachcha'. For this, I took a ton of water in a huge pan and boiled it. I added 250 gms noodles and swirled them around (so they would not stick) and took them off the burner within 2 minutes. I immediately poured all this out into a strainer and ran cold water all over it. This is to stop the cooking process instaneously or else the noodles can become really soggy. This is the step that I used to overlook on all my previous attempts.



I took some oil in a pan (well quite a bit of it) and added sliced garlic to it. When they were brown I added in the sauces, about a teaspoon - some soya, chilly and little vinegar. This splutters a lot so I dumped the chicken in almost immediately. Once the chicken looks like it has soaked in the sauces, add the cooked noodles. Here also add in a little ajinomoto (it does not really affect the taste), salt and pepper along with more vinegar. I mixed all this together so that the meat was spread out and the sauces had coated each strand of noodle.

I added the cut vegetables at the end so that they retain their crunch. And voila!