Recipe
Chicken and broccoli stir-fry with noodles
It is 19:50. You got home at 19:35, which was later than you meant to, the walk from the station was colder than you had dressed for, and somewhere between the front door and the kitchen you have begun quietly assembling the argument for ordering something instead.
The argument is a good one. It always is. It runs: by the time you have chopped anything the delivery would already be here, and you have had a day, and it is only Wednesday.
This recipe exists to beat that argument on its own terms. Ten minutes of chopping and twelve at the hob, which together still come in under the queue time on any delivery app in any European city on any Wednesday evening in history. That is the entire pitch, and it is enough.
The stir-fry is the one non-European technique in this chapter and it earns its place on a simple structural fact: it is the fastest method anyone has devised for turning raw protein and a hard vegetable into dinner. There is no Italian equivalent. Italian fast food is pasta, and pasta needs eleven minutes of boiling before you have started on anything else.
Two things separate a good stir-fry from a wet grey pan of disappointment. First, everything is chopped before anything at all goes into the pan. All of it, including the garlic, including the spring onion for the top. This feels like a delay and is the only reason the cooking part takes four minutes. Second, the pan has to be properly hot, hotter than feels reasonable in a domestic kitchen, and things go in by how long they need: chicken first and out again, broccoli next, chicken back at the end.
The noodles go in last with the soy and honey, which coats everything and gives you a sauce without anybody having to make one. It packs well, it is perfectly decent cold, and it is the only recipe here I would describe as actively good for you, which I mention purely because somebody always asks.
- Prep 10 min
- Cook 12 min
- Serves 2
- Cost €
Method
- 1
Chop everything first and line it up next to the hob. All of it. There is no point in the cooking where you will have time to pick up a knife.
10 min
- 2
Cook the noodles in boiling water for 3 minutes, drain, and rinse under cold water so they stop cooking and stop sticking.
4 min
- 3
Get a large frying pan or wok as hot as it goes. Add the oil, then the chicken in one layer, and leave it 60 seconds before stirring. Cook until just done and tip it back onto its plate.
4 min
- 4
Straight into the same pan go the broccoli and 3 tbsp of water. It will hiss violently. Cover for 2 minutes so it steams, then uncover and let the water boil off.
3 min
- 5
Add the garlic and ginger for 30 seconds, then return the chicken with the noodles, soy and honey. Toss hard until everything is coated and glossy.
2 min
- 6
Off the heat, add the sesame oil, spring onions and chilli flakes if using.
1 min
Variations
Any hard vegetable works in place of broccoli: green beans, mangetout, sliced carrot, cabbage cut into ribbons. Prawns instead of chicken cook in 2 minutes. Firm tofu, pressed and cubed, makes it vegan (use maple syrup for the honey). A tablespoon of oyster sauce or a spoon of peanut butter loosened with the soy turns the sauce into something richer, though the peanut version is no longer nut-free. Rice instead of noodles is fine and reheats better.