Whilst instant noodles can be REALLY EASY to cook, you can actually make a slightly more elaborate dish out of it by adding some ingredients which blend nicely with the springy texture of the instant noodles. For this recipe, I use bean sprouts, carrots and capsicum to give it a bit of crunch and fibre and I also add sliced fish cake for added flavour.


There are actually two parts to cooking this dish. The first part would be to cook the instant noodles in boiling water till al-dente (which is cooked but not soggy or soft). After cooking the noodles in boiling water, drain it and run it under cold / tap water to stop the noodles from cooking further. Running it through the cold / tap water also makes the noodles springy in texture.


The second part involves the stir-frying of the ingredients together with the noodles. You will need a cooker which gives you really high heat or else, the noodles might stick to your wok. And if you used the wok to boil the noodles, I would recommend that you fry some sliced shallots in that wok, remove the oil and shallots and wash the wok before proceeding to stir-fry the instant noodles. Frying the shallots or even an egg for that matter will somehow "recondition" the wok to be less sticky.

This is my recipe for Stir-Fried Instant Noodles


Ingredients

• 4 pieces of instant noodles (cooked by boiling as per above paragraph)
• 1 piece or more of fish cake (sliced) (substitute with whatever meat you want)
• 1/2 piece of capsicum (sliced thinly)
• An equal amount of carrots or more (julienned)
• 300 grammes of bean sprouts (rinsed and root removed)
• 2 stalks of spring onions (cut to 3 inch lengths)
  
• 4 cloves of garlic (chopped)
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons of cooking oil (preferably palm oil)

Seasoning

• 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon of light soya sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of dark soya sauce

Method

Heat oil in wok and saute garlic together with sliced fish cake till garlic begin to brown. Break the eggs over the sliced fish cake and gently stir till egg is thoroughly cooked. Add carrots and capcisum and stir-fry for 1 minute.

Add cooked noodles and seasoning and stir-fry for 1 minute to ensure that seasoning is evenly distributed. Sprinkle some warm water if the noodles are drying out or burning. Sprinkle the spring onions onto the noodles and stir evenly.

Dish out and serve hot with cut chillis.


Technorati Tags : Recipe , Noodles , Stir-Fry , Chinese