December 2, 2009: Vegetarian hor fun

With an over-abundance of pub-outings, Cindy and I were left with a pile of vegie-box leftovers going old in the fridge and a serious need for something vaguely healthy for dinner. Luckily, Pip had the answer: vegetarian hor fun!

This is a pretty simple noodle stir-fry, that uses up whatever vegies you have and flavours them all with a wonderfully sweet and salty sauce. I think I overdid the liquid - no matter how much cornflour I added, my sauce never really thickened up into the gravy that it was meant to. Regardless, with the tofu puffs soaking up plenty of the saucy goodness and the crisp vegies reminding us that there are other ways to cook vegies than deep-fried, this was a quick and delicious meal. Thanks Pip!


Vegetarian Hor Fun

sauce:
2 cups vegie stock
1-2 tablespoons 'oyster' sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine (I used sherry!)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sesame oil

500g rice noodles (we inappropriately used udon, but they worked just fine)
chopped vegies (zucchini, carrot, capsicum, choy sum and mushrooms)
12 fried tofu puffs, halved
2-3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon of minced ginger
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 sliced shallots
a pinch of chilli flakes (thanks to my 'everything tastes better with chilli' attitude)

Mix the sauce ingredients together and prepare the noodles.

Heat a tablespoon of the oil in your wok and stir-fry the noodles for a minute or so and then remove them from the wok and set them aside.

Heat the rest of the oil and then stir-fry the ginger, garlic, shallots and chilli for thirty seconds or so, until you start to sneeze from the ginger and chilli fumes.

Throw in the vegies and the tofu and stir-fry everything for five minutes or so, making sure all the vegies are getting some of the heat. Once everything is starting to go tender, pour in the sauce and stir it through, simmering until it thickens up a bit.

You can add a dash more cornflour (premixed with a few tablespoons of water) here if you need to make the sauce a bit thicker.

Ladle the saucy vegies over the noodles and garnish with a few cashews. Delightful!