Ina's Szechuan Noodles with Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

SAUCE:
6 split chicken breasts, bone-in, skin-on
Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
..................................................
1 bunch broccoli, cut into florets and stems discarded
.....................................................
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup tahini (sesame paste)
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dry sherry
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp Asian hot chili oil
2 TBSP dark toasted sesame oil
1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
.....................................
1 lb spaghetti
4 scallions, sliced diagonally
1 yellow bell pepper, julienned
1 red bell pepper, julienned

Preparation

Step 1

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Place chicken breasts on a sheet pan, skin side up. Rub the tops with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 minutes, til cooked thru. Set aside til cooled enough to handle. Remove the meat from the bones and discard the skin and bones.

Meanwhile, Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the florets for 2 minutes. Drain and immediately immerse in a bowl of ice water. Drain and set aside.

Place the garlic, ginger, vegetable oil, peanut butter, tahini, soy sauce, sherry, sherry vinegar, honey, chili oil, sesame oil, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and the cayenne pepper in a food processor fitted with a steel blade and puree til smooth.

Add a splash of olive oil to a large pot of boiling salted water and cook the spaghetti according to package directions. Drain the pasta, place in a large bowl, and while still warm, toss with the sauce. Add the scallions, pepper chicken and broccoli and toss well. Serve warm or at room temp.
.......................

REVIEWS:

My husband watched Ina Garten make this on the Food Network and said I just had to make it. We enjoyed every bite. Apparently Ina joked while making it that it has a lot of ingredients – 20 in the original recipe! Here are my thoughts on long ingredient lists, they are usually spices or items to make a sauce. This recipe was all about the sauce, which was delightful. Oh, and while the sauce had lots of ingredients they were things I had on hand, so it was pretty easy. One more thing, I read the reviews of the recipe. Some folks didn’t roast their own chicken, but used a rotisserie or leftover chicken. I think that’s a great idea!

I made this noodle using real asian noodles (why would you use spaghetti in an asian recipe) and made a few substitutions -- used a chinese style seasame paste in place of tahini (i think they're prob really the same thing), rice vinegar in place of sherry vinegar, and a chinese style xiao shin wine in place of sherry wine (no offense, i just didn't have sherry). I also used shredded cucumbers and carrots in place of bell peppers, just because it's more authentic that way (you will never find a real chinese recipe w/ raw bell peppers, that's just not how we roll). The sauce tastes amazing!!!!! It tastes like a chinese cold noodle dish that i've been craving for ages but just can't find a restaurant that serves it. Ina, I can't thank you enough! PS - I think it would be equally amazing with sherry/sherry vinegar, I may try that next time.

Great, great dish. The whole family loved this recipe. Definitely will make this again.

I don't understand why some raters thought this was so time consuming. It took me 30 minutes of active cooking to finish this and it turned out GREAT! The sauce is perfect - and don't leave out the tahini - it makes it. I cut the recipe in half since it was just for me and the better half and I still had plenty left over for lunch today! Yes, you can make the sauce ahead, blanche the broccoli and cut up the vege's and toss it all together at the end. I think the whole dish keeps wonderfully and would be a hit at any pot luck. It is also very colorful to the eye, which entices the appetite! Try it - you'll like it! (If you don't like peanut butter, don't even go there.

My only comment (besides how superb this dish was is that there was enough sauce, veggies, and chicken to go around to support two boxes of pasta. A family hit. My kids love broccoli and noodles and they got some protein too from the peanut butter, even if they didn't eat so much chicken. Delish. Will definitely make again.

Delicious pasta dish! It's very similar to restaurant style "Thai Chicken Pasta". My whole family loved it. Roasting the chicken took 45 minutes at 400 degrees. I omitted the sherry because the sauce is not cooked and therefore the alcohol would not cook off. My local grocery did not have sherry vinegar, so I substituted red wine vinegar. The flavor of the sauce is amazing and a perfect compliment to chicken. The addition of shredded carrots gave this dish some more color as well. I prepared the sauce and chicken ahead of time. The recipe produced generous portions and I look forward to having the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

I can see how this won't be to everyone's taste, but I loved it. With so many ingredients (horrors - it takes a long time to assemble them there is clearly lots of room for substitutions and/or omissions. But to the reviewer who let out the tahini - please try it again WITH the tahini. The taste of the tahini comes through even with so many other stronly flavoured ingredients. To me this dish just wouldn't be the same without the tahini. Ditto for the peanut butter.

I really enjoyed this recipe! Next time I would reduce the garlic and ginger because it made the sauce too spicy. I could not find tahini at my grocery store, and it was expensive when I found it at a specialty store, so I left it out. I made the sauce the night before to save time, but it was still time consuming to put together. My husband and I hardly put a dent in it, so there were lots of leftovers. I ate them 3 days later and it was just as good if not better! Overall, it was a very good introduction to cooking asian food. I will make this again, and maybe try a few variations.

This was just okay. Way too much ginger & garlic (and we LOVE garlic. Also, made a HUGE amount of food...made it for 4 people an no one wanted the leftovers. Glad they were family!

SO GOOD! I live alone and didn't want a ton of leftovers, so I cut this recipe by 4. That way I just had 2 servings.

I substituted ground ginger for fresh, using only 1/3 of what I would have used had I done fresh ginger. I also did not have Tahini, so I just doubled the amount of peanut butter. Like a previous reviewer, I used Sriracha hot sauce instead of hot chili oil. I think it would be great to do all the prep work the night before: cook the broccoli, chop everything up, and make the sauce. Then when you're ready to eat just cook the chicken and the noodles and while they're draining, put all the remaining ingredients in the hot pan and combine.

Yum! My fiance couldn't get enough! Neither could I! I didn't have chili oil, but added a little siracha. That's the only change I made. Delicious!

Pretty tasty! I live in a small town and couldn't find some of the ingredients anywhere, so I compromised. Instead of seaseme paste, I used tomato paste and I didn't have chili oil, so I just used that much more seaseme oil. I also just used boneless skinless chicken breasts. The kids even ate it all up, but any thing with spaghetti noodles they will eat. And yes, it made a lot. I fed 3 adults and 4 kids, and still had a lot left over.