Fried noodles

October 24, 2011

October's calendar recipe was simply titled 'fried noodles'. It was a fairly quick and easy dinner to throw together and provided plenty of leftovers - a winning combination for working week cooking. It's not the most exciting recipe, although the sesame seed sprinkles add something a bit interesting to a fairly standard stir-fry. It's a filling and relatively healthy meal, and a good way to use up some vegie box bits, but I'm not sure we'll make it again in a hurry.


Fried noodles

1/4 cup sesame seeds
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
3 teaspoons sesame oil
4 spring onions, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 red chillies, chopped finely
200g firm tofu, cubed
150g button mushrooms, sliced
4 small carrots, cut into sticks
2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons shoshoyu (Japanese soy sauce)
2 teaspoons sugar
350g packet of hokkien noodles

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan until they're just golden (be careful they don't get away from you and burn!). Take them off the heat and leave to cool for a few minutes before whizzing them in a spice grinder or food processor to make powdery sesame sprinkles.

Combine the sesame and sunflower oil in a small bowl and stir together.

Heat half of the oil mixture in a wok and stir-fry the spring onion, garlic and chilli over a medium-high heat for a couple of minutes. Remove the fried mix from the wok and set aside.

Now stir-fry the tofu for 5-6 minutes, until it's gone nice and golden. Once it's ready, remove it and set it aside for later.

Pour the remaining oil into the wok and, once it has warmed up, stir-fry the carrots and mushrooms for a couple of minutes. Add the water, shoshoyu, sugar and noodles to the wok, making sure you've separated the noodles and stirred them through the sauce as much as possible. Cover the wok and leave to cook for 4 minutes.

Add back the tofu and the onion mix to the wok, stir everything together and serve with a generous sprinkle of the sesame seeds on top.