Barefoot Bloggers Thursday

I have to post a day early, as I am leaving on a trip to visit grandchildren and will not be able to get to my computer until Friday.

McKenzie of Kenzie's Kitchen chose this weeks recipe, Chinese Chicken Salad. As there are just two of us, I reduced the size of the recipe and used pear cherry tomatoes, I did not have any red pepper. Also, I used some endive and added some bean threads for more crunch. They were easy to prepare and looked fun on the plate. I was surprised that they were so fresh tasting and not oily. Here is how I did it using a recipe from simplyrecipes.com - Martha's Chinese Chicken Salad

Put 3/4 inch of high smoke point cooking oil (such as grapeseed oil or peanut oil - I used grapeseed oil) into a small sauce pan. Heat on high heat until when you flick a drop or two of water into the oil it sizzles. Take one bunch of the dried bean threads and gently break them up a bit. Test the oil by putting one bean thread into the oil. If the oil is hot enough, the bean thread will almost immediately sizzle and puff up. That's when you know the oil is hot enough. Working with a few bean threads at a time, put them in the hot oil. As soon as they puff up, remove them carefully with tongs and place them on a paper towel to cool. The paper towel helps remove any excess oil. I found that the oil needed to heat up again a few seconds between the batchs of bean threads.

Thank you McKenzie for your selection. Happy cooking and Happy Spring to all of the Barefoot Bloggers.