This is the second ‘main course’ recipe which qualifies for inclusion on this blog after meeting all the criteria. These are: (1) having made it a few times, (2) having confirmed I’ve got the recipe right, and (3) being convinced I could eat it frequently.
The dish didn’t seem especially enticing the first time I saw the recipe, but I had the ingredients, so I gave it a go. How wrong I was – it’s really nice.
Crispy Noodles & Vegetables
Adapted from The Veggie Chinese Takeaway Cookbook.
(Single page recipe to print out, PDF)
This takes about half an hour to make, and you’ll be busy enough throughout.
Note that vegetable stock is required, which may need additional preparation. My thoughts on that can be read here, but in essence, if you’ve got some around, great, but otherwise stock cubes are fine!
There’s also mushroom stir-fry sauce, which can be hard to track down. An alternative I’ve tried very successfully is to make some from scratch, and freeze it in an ice cube tray for subsequent use in recipes such as this. There’s one such mushroom stir-fry sauce recipe here.
Prep veg (combine)
- 1 carrot, sliced
- 30g bamboo shoots
- 3 baby corn cobs, sliced
- 25g mangetout
- 35g canned straw mushrooms
Prep other items (separate)
- 1 teaspoonfuls garlic paste
- 2 teaspoonfuls ginger paste
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 handful of beansprouts
- 2 spring onions, sliced
Prep sauce (combine)
- 3 teaspoonfuls dark soy sauce
- 3 teaspoonfuls light soy sauce
- ½ teaspoonful white pepper
- ½ teaspoonful salt
- 6 teaspoonfuls mushroom stir-fry sauce
- 75ml vegetable stock
Prep rest (separate)
- 2 nests of dried fine egg noodles or dried fine rice noodles
- Vegetable oil
- Coconut oil
- 6 teaspoonfuls cornflour
- Sesame oil
Instructions
- Cook noodles a bit less than as per instructions, just until soft, drain and cool.
- Shallow fry in vegetable oil in a frying pan or wok until crispy, then flip them over to crisp the other side. Turn out onto kitchen paper to drain; cover to keep warm.
- Heat the coconut oil in a frying pan or wok, cook the ginger and garlic for a minute or so, then add the onions and cook for a couple of minutes until soft.
- Add the combined carrot, bamboo shoots, corn cobs, mangetout and mushrooms. Cook for a minute, then add the beansprouts and spring onions, mixing well.
- Add in the combined dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, pepper, salt, mushroom stir-fry sauce and vegetable stock, then bring to the boil.
- Mix the cornflour with about twice as much water, and add to the pan slowly. Stop if the sauce gets too thick.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the sesame oil.
- Add the vegetable mix on top of the noodles and serve.