Noodles:
Chinese Vermicelli Noodles (very thin, and get the chinese kind)
Sauce:
3/4 cup Hoisin sauce
1 T Honey or sugar
2 T Ketchup
Meat:
Chicken, beef, or pork.
Veggies:
Onions
Bell peppers (green, red, and/or yellow)
Carrots (par-boiled)
Zucchini
Bok choy (Shred leaves by cutting really thin. Cut out middle of stalks and throw away)
Other:
Olive oil (or sesame oil, depending on the flavour you like)
Garlic
Ginger
Combine the sauce ingredients to make the mixed hoisin sauce.
Salt and pepper the meat. Combine the meat and some of the mixed hoisin sauce.
In a pan, bake sauced meat at 325C, turning over half-way through. You could BBQ the meat instead, your choice.
Once the meat is done cooking, continue with the rest of the cooking.
Fill a pot with very hot tap water, as hot as you can get it. Put the noodles in the pot and just leave it in the sink. The hot water will have them cooked by the time you are done stir frying.
Once the meat is cooked, take it out and slice it in strips.
Choose your veggies. Cut them into strips.
Mince ginger and garlic.
In a wok, stir fry olive oil, minced garlic and minced ginger. Add onions and stir fry for until onions are translucent. Add the harder veggies, like the bok choy stalks, carrots, green peppers, and stir fry for 3 minutes. Add the rest of the veggies and the meat. Stir fry for 3 minutes. Add mixed hoisin sauce to taste. Add cooked and drained chinese vermicelli noodles, and mix it all up. Add more mixed hoisin sauce of required.
The trick to stir frying is having all your ingredients chopped and ready to add to the wok before you start stir frying. There is no time to chop, slice or mince while that wok is hot and cooking everything.
This recipe reminded me of taking Chinese Food Cooking courses in the early 1970's. Wyona and I took separate classes, but the method was the same in both sets of lessons and we traded recipes. Many of the recipes I was shown became household favorites: about 10 out of the 30 that were shown to me. I would go home and practise the 3 recipes shown for the night on my family all week. I have a Shanghai Noodle recipe that is similar to the Hoisin Noodle Recipe you have posted. My teacher showed me a Fried Rice Supreme -- because we put in it more ingredients than a restaurant who were trying to make money could use.
ReplyDeleteI remember the tip of taking the fried rice, pressing it into a custard cup, then placing it upside down on the plate to make a small individual mound of fried rice with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds on top. That special touch may now be lost on my kids, but I remember how fun it was to do that for them when I was a young mom.
I think, hands down, what I have done most over the years is a simple stir-fry, though fried rice would be a close second. Well worth investing in a simple wok that can be purchased from Chinatown, though that is not necessary.
I bought some chopsticks as well, and had the kids try to eat with them. I didn't care how they got the food to their mouths. I just thought they would have the fun of trying.
Arta