If you know anything about me it’s that while I do love to cook, faffy cooking is not appealing to me. I’m talking about the parts that require you to finely dice your vegetables, to blanch your tomatoes and peel the skin off — no, thank you.
B, on the other hand, is patient and will diligently follow a recipe to a tee, even when I try to hurry him along. His beige flag is that he is the world’s slowest chopper. I can whizz through an onion, dice a pepper and he’s still finely chopping some garlic. Admirable, but also not the most efficient.
I sent him this recipe because it only has five ingredients in it. It’s from Jamie Oliver’s cookbook, which is incredibly handy to have when you want to make something quick. However…I have to put Jamie on blast here because sometimes his recipe timeplan is utter nonsense. The recipe below says it takes 20 minutes to make, clearly this doesn’t include his mise en place. Cutting the skin off the chicken and then pulling out the bones, then cooking the chicken isn’t not a quick job.
Nonetheless, I will admit that the crisping of the chicken skin adds a delightful crunch. I’ve adjusted the recipe a bit as I feel that his original one had you bouncing back and forth between pan and pot.
Ingredients
2 x 200 g chicken thighs, skin on, bone in
150 g fine rice noodles — alternatively, use pre-cooked noodles and add them to the pan with the sugar snap peas.
200 g sugar snap peas
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons chilli jam
Method
Pull the skin off the chicken. Place the skin in a large non-stick frying pan on a medium heat to render and get golden, turning occasionally. Don’t add any oil to your pan — oils from the chicken skin will naturally come out.
Cut the bones out of the thighs and chuck into the pan for bonus flavour, then chop the meat into small chunks.
Move the skin and bones to one side of the pan, then add the meat alongside and cook for five minutes, or until golden, stirring occasionally.
Once crispy, remove, chop and reserve the skin, discarding the bones.
Meanwhile, cook the noodles in boiling salted water according to the packet instructions. You can also use pre-cooked rice noodles. Have these ready to go. Halve the sugar snaps lengthways.
Once soft, drain the noodles, reserving a mugful of cooking water. Again, ignore this step if using pre-cooked noodles.
Stir the Worcestershire sauce and chilli jam into the chicken pan and let the jam melt, then add the sugar snaps. Cook until slightly softened.
Add the noodles in.
Toss over the heat for about two minutes, adding a tablespoon of reserved noodle water to loosen, if using.
Taste and season to perfection with sea salt and black pepper, then dish up and sprinkle over the reserved crispy chicken skin.
Lovely recipe - thank you, Natalie!
Although I too love speedy recipes, I'm actually all about the chopping! I love the whole process of washing, peeling, slicing, dicing, grating - all of that. My husband knows to avoid the kitchen when I say I'm heading there to do some 'therapeutic chopping' - it's how I love to wind down on a busy day!
(Not that I ever HAVE to cook - I batch cook multiple portions every time I cook at all - so if today's not a chopping day, that's fine, too!) 🤣