What's 4 Dinner, by Marie: Thai Noodles with Ground Chicken and Crispy Shallots

I got this recipe from Bon Appetite Magazine, June 2009. It was a request from a woman who’d eaten this at the Tong Thai Brasserie in New York. Bon Appetite got her this recipe. It sounded interesting so I wanted to make it for you.

Let me warn you. This is NOT a weeknight recipe. I was not in school today, so I had extra time. It took about 2 hours! Next time, I’ll cut time out by pre-doing some things. I’ll give you those hints as I go through the recipe with you here.

Vegetable oil for frying

4 large shallots, cut into ¼ inch slices, and separated into rings
5 cloves garlic total, 3 sliced thinly
3 quarts chicken broth
1 pound chicken thighs cut into large cubes
1 Tablespoon Thai Fish Sauce
8 ounces Rice Noodles, broken in half if they are long
8 ounces fresh green beans, or Chinese Long Beans, cut into 1-inch pieces

Small Bowl #12 Tablespoons Asian Sesame Oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed

Small Bowl #2¼ cup fresh lime juice (2 limes)
Tablespoon raw sugar (I used regular sugar)
¼ teaspoon cayenne powder
3 Tablespoons Thai Fish Sauce

Small Bowl #3½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
½ cup chopped fresh green onion
2 Tablespoons chopped salted roasted peanuts (I did not use)
Tablespoon raw sugar (I did not use any additional sugar)

Hot Sauce Sriracha for addition at the table
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Deep fry sliced shallots in a couple inches of hot oil. If your oil is too hot when you put the shallots in, the pan with boil over. I’d rather you put them in and increase temperature to fry. This step took almost 20 minutes. The recipe said 8 minutes. Hmm. When they are browned and crispy, remove to paper toweling to drain. Now, fry garlic. This will take only a minute or two. There’s much less moisture in the sliced garlic. Remove to paper toweling again. You can mix with shallot, it won’t matter. Once this is done, you are done with the oil. You can move it away from the stove.

Mix together the two cloves of pressed garlic and the sesame oil.

Put your chicken broth into a large pot and bring to a boil. While you are awaiting the boil, process your chicken in the food processor to grind it up. It should look like pink hamburger when it’s done.

Once the chicken is ground and the broth is boiling, add the chicken to broth, breaking up so you have small pieces not big chunks of meat. When meat is cooked, remove from broth with a slotted spoon. Put it into a large bowl, large enough to hold the entire recipe, when finished. Stir in one Tablespoon of the fish sauce.

Bring broth back to the boil, cook noodles until tender. Remove from broth and add to bowl with chicken, mix.

Bring broth back to the boil and cook beans. When tender, remove and add to noodle and chicken. Mix in.

Mix in everything in Bowls #1 and #2.

After mixing well, transfer mixture to large shallow dish for table presentation.

Sprinkle everything from Bowl #3 onto the top before serving. I only used half of everything and brought the extra to the table so everyone could add more if they chose.

At the table, everyone can sprinkle on the Sriracha sauce as they’d like to taste. It really did add a Thai dimension to the dish.

The dish went over VERY well. We all loved it! Next time, I’d make this recipe on the weekend.

Other time saving ideas:
• Cut and separate shallots earlier. It took way too long before cooking.
• Shallots and garlic may be fried up to two hours before dinner. Just hold the fried veggies at room temperature until you need them.
• Chicken, noodles and beans could all be cooked earlier and saved in the fridge for dinner later. I’d just get the broth boiling, add all three and heat to temperature and remove all, together, from the hot broth to the mixing bowl, and go forward from that point.

I hope that I don’t bore you. There are quite a few pictures fro this recipe. Jonathan was a big help with this one. Messy hands and camera don’t get along! :)

P.S. Don’t throw away that broth! It’s delicious too! Add some noodles, or enjoy as it!

Gather everything

Simple picture doesn't show the time invested in peeling, and slicing and then separating all these shallots. LOL! Next time, I'll do it the night before as I'm cooking a simple meal.

Pressed garlic in the Asian sesame oil. This is not clear sesame oil, like you'd use in salad dressing. Look in the Asian food section of the grocery.

Fried shallots, finally done.

Chicken all ground in the food processor.

Chicken goes into boiling broth.

All done, scoop it out...

And into a big bowl.

Add one tablespoon of the fish sauce and stir it in. Jonathan said this was so good, he could just eat it now. LOL!

Bring broth back to boil.

Add the rice noodles. Jonathan saying... hurry mom, my arm's getting hot!

Noodles are done, add them to the chicken in the bowl.

Bring broth to boil and add beans.

While the beans are cooking, prepare the other smaller bowls of ingredients. First set... Lime juice, sesame oil and garlic, cayenne and sugar and fish sauce.