December 14, 2017

First Asia inspired dinner

I’ve been back for four days and I am already missing asian food. So tonight I decided to concoct something inspired by much of the food I have eaten over the last two months. I had to pop out to buy eggs but other than that it was created from what was already in the cupboards.

Vegetable Rice Noodles

First of all pre prepare all of your vegetables. This is another one of those recipes where you could use a number of different things. I had carrots, courgette, mushrooms and broccoli in the house but all sorts of other things would work well too. Be adventurous and try things…what is the worst that can happen?

Next chop an onion, some garlic and some fresh ginger (on this occasion I used a teaspoon full from a jar of ready prepared ginger I had in the fridge). Measure out some chilli flakes and some black pepper, the amount is purely down to your own taste. You could of course use fresh chilli if you have them.

Next you will need to toast some nuts. Traditionally this would be peanuts but I didn’t have any and although I popped out for eggs the shop didn’t have peanuts either so I found some cashew nuts at home and used them instead. Once they have been dry fried to toast them off and increase the intensity of flavour they need to be roughly ground.

Last bit of prep is to get the noodles on. Place some rice noodles in a large saucepan and cover with boiling water. Leave to soak for the duration of the cooking time for the veg they should then be about perfect. You really need them to be on the al dente side as they will cook a little more when added to the veg.

Ok so now its time to put it all together. First of all use a large wok on a hot heat add a little tasteless oil and fry the onions until they turn translucent. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and pepper and stir round for a couple of minutes. Start to add your veg starting with whichever one will take the longest to cook. Keep adding each veg at a couple of minute intervals working down to whatever will cook the quickest.

When you think the vegetables are nearly done push them to one side of your wok and crack a couple of eggs into the space. Quickly move them around to make a scrambled egg consistency and you will need to scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the best bits off and mix in with the veg.

Now for some flavour. Add a good tablespoon of tamarind sauce and some gluten free soya sauce. I would usually use fish sauce instead of the soya sauce but on this occasion I didn’t have any to hand so its up to you which one you use.

Stir it all together taste and check if it needs a little salt (this will be dependant on how much soya sauce you used). Finally drain the noodles and add into the wok with a little of the water they were soaking in.