Evolution

Recipes build off one another. Lack of ingredients often leads to invention, or better known as, necessity is the mother of invention (cited from my Father). I very much agree this is a truth in cooking. Knowing how to do one thing can serve as a launching point to something new. In a previous post I discussed simple syrup for a mixed drink. While I'm still not too fond of the mixed drink (though I'm still working on it), the syrup served as a launching point for a missing sauce to a batch of Asian noodles I was making. The sauce was fantastic, but the dish looked anything but appetizing. It was missing color and crunch. It was an incomplete dish (that said, I cooked only with what I had on hand). What I would of done differently is added many more colorful and tasty vegetables and either ditched the chicken or marinated it in the sauce well in advance. The chicken was much too bland and didn't soak up the sauce. But I learned and I moved on.

I stuck with the chicken, but this time I delightfully breaded and fried it so it could soak up sauce. And a new instant favorite was created. While I believe the chicken was perfectly breaded, the sauce is the star here. I want to revisit my first dish attempted with this sauce, because rice noodles compliment the sauce so well, and perhaps better than breaded chicken.



Accompanying the chicken was chips from a previous post and a lovely corn based salsa my wife made (lack of ingredients driving the recipe yet again). Recipe is as pictured. Simple as that.

 

The sauce recipe is a very simple one and without knowing it, I recreated something I've tried to create in the past. My good friend once took my to a Filipino restaurant where I was very impressed with the sauce served with a fish served split open and fried. I never got it down after a couple of attempts and I forgot about it. After making this sauce, I was instantly brought back to that Filipino meal and I knew I had accidentally recreated the sauce I once tried to make. I have not nailed down the proportions yet, but the ingredients are:

simple syrup (half water, half sugar)

soy sauce

lime juice

I know that recipe is very vague, but I've only made it to taste so far, not paying attention to proportions just yet.