Blooper: Sea Food Chow Fun...Not So Fun

Song:  Daryl's Epitaph

From:  FF VI (III in US) Symphonic Re-work

I recently attempted to make sea food chow fun for my mother.

I will not be giving out this recipe...

only because mine was a recipe for culinary disaster.

Again...

I am not a talented cook.

I usually like to make very simple and wholesome meals.

My wife had recently made this dish at home.

It had tasted so delicious...

I wanted to make it for my mother a few days later.

We started out the day with a shopping trip to the local Asian market.

I had gotten ingredients for several meals to come from there...

along with some treats.

My mother loves manju (mochi covered bean paste).

I had gotten more shishito peppers...and daikon.

I will be making the kabocha on the morrow...

and the shrimp I would use on this night.

In the near future...

we will be making natto maki.

And...my mother loves to snack on dried anchovy.

We started out by snacking on the manju.

I then fire roasted the shishito

(I used my mother for demonstration purposes only.

This night's cooking disaster was all my doing  :)

When fire roasting shishito...

always have the stove exhaust fan on Max.   

The mist which is released from the peppers will irritate your eyes and sinuses otherwise.

We had the shrimp and scallops all ready to defrost.

These were primo shrimp and scallops.

I had all the cooking implements all laid out...

and ready to cook everything separately.

I decided to call my wife to double check on how she had cooked the dish.

She had used one pan to cook everything.

I had fool heartedly decided to try it her way.

My big mistake was not factoring in her far greater experience in the kitchen.

And...

this is where everything fell apart.

This would be my first time cooking this dish...

and my last  :)

I usually like to cook the meats in such dishes...separately.

This allows me to cook the meats without having to time the cooking

of the vegetables and the noodles, as well as the meat...all at once.

I was going to merely add the cooked sea food to the noodles at the end.

I was going to first cook the noodles with the sauce in the wok...

and then add the sea food without heat...

and mix them together thoroughly.

I should have  :)

My mother cut up the green onions.

I had bought some rice noodles for this dish.

I will never cook rice noodles again.

I had mistimed the cooking of the noodles.

I had to rinse the strained noodles with water to break up the resulting glutinous mass.

These flat rice noodles had over cooked so quickly

(I know...I know...a better cook would have had no problem :)

I will stick to wheat pasta from now on.

I had all of the ingredients all laid out.

I had placed the fire on high...

and I started out with the onions.

After a short while...

I added the sea food.

After the sea food was done...

I then added the sauces to flavor the meat

(with the exception of the oyster sauce).

I had wanted to flavor the meat with the sauce for a few moments.

I then drained the juice...

and added the noodles.

Now...

I had committed two major sins of the kitchen here.

First...

I had added the cooked noodles to the already cooked sea food.

With the fire on high...

I wanted to sear some of the noodles with the oyster sauce.

I hadn't factored in that the already cooked sea food would then...over cook.

The second kitchen sin I had made was to measure the amount of sauce needed...by sight...

instead of by taste.

As a result...

the whole dish was too salty...

to the point of almost complete inedibility  :(

So...

I said to myself...

hmm...the color is not as dark as it should be...

so I added more oyster sauce...

and then a little more...

and so, I had walked my way straight into food hell.

And this is where it had gotten so salty that I could only eat a few bites of the supper.

The supper was not a complete waste.

The shishito had turned out well  :)

My mother wanted to keep the sea food in a container for later on...

and so, I picked out the overcooked, salt mine tasting, sea food morsels...

and put them in the fridge.

Although she didn't say it...

I think my mother will feed the sea food to Hana (her dog) on the morrow.

I threw all of the noodles into the trash.

Usually my mother gets upset when I do such things with food.

However...

on this night...

she only put up token resistance to my throwing away 

almost a full 14" wok full of noodles  :)

Something had happened to me on this night that rarely ever happens.

After but a few bites...

I had completely lost my appetite for the rest of the night.

In the future...

whenever we wish to eat some good chow fun...

we will go to a local Chinese restaurant.

No more chow (not so) fun for me.

After saying this to my mother...

she had actually smiled...

and agreed  :)