Not Your Ordinary Noodle
Another easy salad idea for the hot days ahead. This Asian-inspired salad is easy to prepare and delivers complex layers of flavor and texture. I cook all the components in my black iron skillet or wok and remove each cooked layer to bowls until I'm ready to assemble the individual salads. I have my cold items sliced, diced and seasoned-ready to be served before I even begin the cooking process. Experience and repetition have taught me how to prepare ingredients in the proper order to ensure that each stage of a recipe is ready when I need it. Learning the art of combining ingredients on hand comes from years of studying the core ingredients of different ethnic recipes and finding their common denominator(s). And finally, stocking my pantry with ingredients that allow me to grab ordinary ingredients and creating a tasty meal without a recipe. For this simple salad, I boiled the chicken wings with fresh garlic and saved my stock. For the black iron skillet I created an essentia...