Chicken Yakisoba

Because the majority of this dish is composed of mushrooms and vegetables this dish is incredibly low in points for the amount of food you end up with on your plate; and since the whole thing is cooked quickly over a high heat all the vegetables keep their flavour and their crunch.If you go to your local Chinese supermarket you can get hold of fresh noodles to cook this dish, but if you can't do that the straight to wok noodles such as those made by Sharwoods or Amoy will substitute just fine.

The whole meal is worth 8.5 Weight Watchers points.



Ingredients (serves 2)

• 150g Chicken breast (2.5 points)
• 1 teaspoon oil (1 point)
• 1 Carrot
• 1 Green pepper
• 1 Onion
• 150g bean sprouts
• 90g mushrooms (especially good with shitake)
• 2 eggs (2.5 points)
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons mirin (1 point)
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil (1 point)
• 1 tablespoon oil (2.5 points)
• 300g raman noodles (7.5 points)

First we need to cook the chicken, the way I find tastes best is to fry the chicken over a very high heat, this way it gets a lovely caramelised crust just like you do with barbecued food. If your chicken breast is quite thick, you may want to cut it in half to create two slightly thinner pieces.

First heat a heavy frying pan over a very high heat. Once it is very hot, add the teaspoon of oil and wipe around the pan with a piece of paper towel and then add the chicken breast. Don't move the chicken once it has been placed in the pan, or else it will stick. Leave it in place for a few minutes until the chicken is cooked halfway through, then turn it over and cook on the other side. When it's cooked all the way through, put it on the side and let it cool a little.

Meanwhile, peel the carrot and cut it into matchsticks. If you are feeling lazy, you can grate the carrots with a cheese grater, but I think it's nice cut slightly large as the carrots keep their crunch better. Then add these to a large bowl.

Slice the pepper thinly and add to the bowl with the carrots.

Slice the onion thinly and add to the bowl.

Cut the mushrooms quite large, each one into quarters is probably about right.

Add the bean sprouts.

Roughly chop the chicken into relatively small pieces and add with the rest of the ingredients.

Add the noodles.

Now add the eggs, soy sauce, mirin, and sesame oil to the bowl.




Now comes the fun part, mix the whole thing up with your hands so that the sauce and other ingredients are all evenly spread. 

The trick to cooking this is to fry the dish over a very high heat and leave the ingredients to cook for about a minute without moving them. Then give them a stir and repeat leaving for a minute and then stirring until cooked. This creates bits of caramelised vegetables and eggs which is what gives this a great flavour. My wok is pretty big, but even so this has to be cooked in two batches.

Heat a wok over a very high heat until it begins to smoke and add the tablespoon of oil and wipe round with some paper towel. Add half the noodle mixture and leave to sizzle for a minute or two. Then stir round and leave. Continue until this batch is cooked and put aside. Then re-heat the wok and add the rest of the mixture. When this mixture is done add the first batch to the pan to reheat and mix. 

Serve garnished with chopped spring onions.