Easy on the chilli!

I was lucky enough to visit the Oxfordshire Chilli Festival on Saturday 16th August and had a wonderful (if tearjerking) time sampling the best of the country's chilli sauces, pickles, extracts and sundries. As I like to walk on the spicy side, we came home laden with a bag of goodies including such smirk-inducing names as 'Dr Assburn's Habanero Sauce.'

One of the stalls I visited was from Grim Reaper Foods and I had a nice chat with the stallholder regarding the potential uses for his delicious oils, one of which (The Tempest chilli and garlic oil) I used in this stir-fry recipe. Just go easy on the chilli as the oil I used was extremely potent which resulted in a tasty but extremely firey dish! 

Ingredients (for two):

• 2 organic chicken breasts
• 2 nests of medium egg noodles
• Handful of beansprouts
• Handful of tenderstem broccoli
• Handful of baby asparagus
• 1 tbsp of whole-nut peanut butter
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 stick of lemongrass
• 1 red chilli
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 thumb sized piece of ginger
• A dash of soy sauce
• A drizzle of flavoured oil (I used The Tempest but you could use any that you like and think suitable!)

Method:

1. Put your nests of noodles in a pan of boiling water, boil for three to four minutes and then drain and set aside.
2. Slice the chicken, chilli, garlic, ginger and lemongrass (I like to keep the chicken in bite-sized chunks.)
3. Fry your chicken off in a searingly hot wok (a large saucepan will do) with a dash of sesame oil.
4. When the chicken is almost cooked, add the lemongrass, baby asparagus and tenderstem broccoli. Stir fry for a couple more minutes.
5. Add the chilli, garlic, ginger, beansprouts and peanut butter and cook until just browned (be careful not to burn as the garlic will go acrid.)
6. Toss through your noodles and drizzle with soy sauce and your flavoured oil.
7. Enjoy in all their slurpy, sizzling goodness.

A word of warning: PLEASE remember to wash your hands after handling chilli. I made the rookie mistake of rubbing my nose before I washed my hands and ended up bouncing round the kitchen with watery eyes for a good five minutes until it wore off. Thank goodness it wasn't my eyes (or, dread to think; a more delicate area!)