Stephen Nottingham's Food Blog: Change4Life Supermeals Challenge Day 3

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Change4Life Supermeals Challenge Day 3

On the third day of my Supermeals Challenge I cooked the 10-minute chicken noodle dinner. The Supermeals recipe booklet is published by Change4Life, a Welsh Government public health campaign, and it aims to help people prepare quick, easy and healthy meals on a limited budget.

The recipe in the booklet (below) lists roast chicken breast. I am taking the recipes in order, but looking ahead I noticed that in the Sunday Roast recipe (which I will be cooking this Sunday), it’s suggested you use leftover roast chicken for this chicken noodle recipe.

However, with raw value-line chicken breasts to cook, I decided to take the ingredients listed in a slightly different direction. I stir-fried bite-sized pieces of chicken breast with the chopped onion in a wok (and I was happy to spend a few extra minutes doing so).

I cooked strips of red pepper, carrot and mushroom in the stock (made using a chicken stock cube). I also added an additional ingredient of my own: a finely-chopped and seeded green chilli pepper.

The cooked and drained noodles, and the vegetables and stock, were added to the wok to finish the cooking process.

My chicken noodle broth somewhat resembled a ramen (for those of you familiar with Wagamama), which is a traditional Japanese dish built around noodles, a soup base and a primary ingredient, such as chicken.

It was the best meal of the challenge so far.

The Change4Life recipe booklet is filled with useful and simple recipes, for quick and cheap dinners, but I would suggest you feel free to spice them up a bit.

10-minute chicken noodle dinner

The ingredients: 125g egg noodles, 1.2 litres reduced-salt or vegetable stock, 300g any combination of spring onions/red onions/mushrooms/carrots/pepper cut into bite-sized pieces or strips, 250g sliced roast chicken breast, ground black pepper, few drops of reduced salt soy sauce.

The method: Cook noodles. Cook vegetables in the stock. Drain noodles and add them with the chicken to the stock and vegetables. Heat for 1-2 minutes, season with pepper, and ladle into bowls. Serve each portion with a few drops of soy sauce.

The 10-minute chicken noodle dinner, according to the booklet, contains around 245 kcals a portion.

Change4Life: