Cooking 101: Our Version of Yellow Cab's Charlie Chan Chicken Pasta

Despite craving for Yellow Cab’s extremely popular Charlie Chan Chicken Pasta, my “motley crew” and I didn’t dash to the nearest YC branch. We opted to whip up our version instead as a wonderful way to bond while saving our precious pesos in the process.

What We Used:

250 grams of angel’s hair pasta, cooked according to package directions
olive oil
150 grams of diced chicken meat
ground cashews and roasted peanuts
2 packs of Clara Ole Kung Pao Pasta Sauce
Lee Kum Kee Oyster Sauce to taste
salt and white pepper to taste
brown sugar to taste
chili pepper flakes to taste
scallions or spring onions
lemon juice

What I Did with the Pasta:
I love cooking pasta so without going through the preliminaries, I assigned and authorized myself to do the job!

After putting in just enough water in the pan, I added in a handful of salt to make the pasta distinctly more flavorful. I got that tip from constantly watching Giada De Laurentiis’s show on the Asian Food Channel.
A minute after the water boiled, I added in the pasta and allowed it to cook for a few minutes.
Since Angel’s hair cooks much faster than any other pasta types, it just took a little under 4 minutes before it turned out al dente. A minute before this happened however, I was already scooping the pasta out of the pan to preserve the chewy texture that I dearly love.
Coating Angel’s Hair with some olive oil is my favorite step because, by this time, I can freely devour my pasta sans the sauce!

What We Did with the Sauce:

After mixing in some salt, pepper and lemon juice to our chicken, we let it marinate inside the fridge for about two hours.
Afterward, we sauteed the meat in oil, added in some nuts and cooked both for a few more minutes.
We then poured in the Clara Ole Kung Pao Pasta Sauce and cooked until everything’s been heated through.
A tablespoon or two of oyster sauce tossed in with some lemon juice, sugar, salt, and pepper flakes did make a difference in the overall texture of the sauce.
As a fitting finale, we added in the pasta as well as some scallions for freshness.

Need I say more?