Noodles with Green Beans

Using up left over green beans and spring onions

Serves 2

Ingredients: 2 cakes of dried noodles, spring onions, green beans, corriander. For the sauce, soy sauce, sirracha, honey, hoison sauce, lime juice.

Preparation:

Cook the noodles and set a side. Next mix your sauce ingedients and set a side. Taste and adjust if necessary. Stir fry green beans ( or cheat and cook separately and then add to wok) in seasame oil and add the spring onions. Add the noodles and then make a well and add the sauce and stir through and serve when hot.

 

 

Brocolli and noodles with hoison

Serves 2

Ingredients: 2 dried noodle cakes, broccoli, sesame seeds, half an onion, soy sauce, hoisin sauce and chilli garlic sauce.

Preparation: Cooks 2 nest of noodles and set aside. In a wok, fry half an onion in a little amount sunflower oil.

Next, combine some soy sauce with some hoisin sauce and a little chilli garlic sauce and stir together. A few blobs will do.

Add the noodles to the wok with some pre-cooked broccoli and stir through the sauce and mix for a minute. Add a sprinkle of sesame seeds to serve

 

Brocolli with Stir Fry Noodles with chilli garlic sauce

Serves 2
Ingredients: 2 nests of dried noodles, half an onion, broccoli, chilli garlic sauce, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil

Preparation:
Cook 2 nest of noodles and set aside. Next cheat by cooking some broccoli in some water in the microwave and set aside again. In a large wok, stir-fry a sliced onion and cook until they become soft and sweet.

In a bowl mix a teaspoon of soy sauce with a dash of sesame oil, half a teaspoon of chilli garlic sauce and a blob of honey. Taste it. If you need extra sauce, add little more soy sauce.

Now add the broccoli to the wok with the noodles and sauce and stir through for a couple of minutes.
Serve with a couple of spring rolls.

 

 

Chinese Lemon Crispy Lemon Chicken

An easy and tasty Lemon dish using crispy Quorn nuggets as the chicken substitute.

Ingredients: 60ml of veg stock, 1/2 lemon zest, 1 large lemon juice, 4 tbsp of sugar, slurry(1 tbsp water with 1/2 tbsp corn flour) and large chunk of ginger, sesame seeds and spring onions, rice, Quorn nuggets

Preparation: Cook 6 nuggets per person according to the packet instructions.
For the sauce, mix the lemon zest, lemon juice and the sugar to make a smooth sauce. In a heavy bottom pan and add the stock, lemon juice and finely chopped ginger and heat, but avoid boiling or too much simmering, as you do not want to make lemon treacle.
Pour in the slurry and stir through. If the mixture is too thick, add another tablespoon of the vegetarian stock. Taste as you go along and add either more sugar or lemon. Don’t worry if it looks like there is not enough, as just need a little to coat the crispy nuggets.
When the nuggets are cooked, add them to the pan with the sauce and stir through, so they have an even coating.
To serve, place on top of some freshly cooked basmati rice, sprinkle some sesame seeds and chopped spring onions.

 

Sweet and Sour Aubergine

This recipe teaches you the basics of how to make a basic sweet and sour sauce.

Ingredients: Rice, Whole large aubergine, Red wine Vinegar, cornstarch, soy sauce, sugar, green beans, red chilli, onion, green beans

Preparation: For the sauce, mix 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar with 2 tbsp of the sugar and mix until dissolved. Then add 2 tbsp of soy sauce and stir. Finally, add 2 tbsp of cornstarch and mix into a smooth sauce.
I have only made this with 2 tbsp of sugar but will experiment with 1 tbsp next time.

Slice half an onion and cut into medium size strips and fry in a large pan. Next, cube the aubergine and add to the pan and cook for about 7-10 minutes. Add in 1 finely sliced chilli and leave a few pieces to garnish. Add in 200g of fine green beans which have been cooked separately. Finally, add the sauce and stirfry for about a minute until the sauce becomes hot and the veg are evenly coated.

To serve, place the sweet and sour veg on some freshly cooked basmati rice.

Stir fry bean sprouts noodle

This meal can be prepared in minutes.

Ingredients: Dried fine noodles, 200g bean sprouts, mushrooms, spring onions, five spice, Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce, kale

Preparation:
Cook the dried noodles, allowing one cake per person. Then rinse and drain and set aside.
In a hot wok, add the bean sprouts and a few sliced mushrooms and cook for a couple of minutes or so. When soft, add the noodles and a handful of kale and some chopped spring onion. Next, add a pinch of five spice with a dash of rice wine and a large glug of soy sauce and stir-fry for a further couple of minutes.

 

 

Chinese pancakes

You can still experience the treat of Chinese pancakes without duck by using some spices and mushrooms. The fun is part if making up your pancake with all the bobbins, and all of this takes fewer than 15 minutes to knock up.

Ingredients: Pre-made Chinese pancakes, 200g of chestnut mushroom, spring onion, cucumber, hoisin sauce, five spice, soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, sesame oil, sugar and cos lettuce.

Preparation:

Slice 3 spring onions into long thin strips and set aside. Next, peel and deseed a cucumber then cut into long thin matchsticks. Shred a little cos lettuce ready for the table and pour a little hoisin sauce in a serving dish.

Slice the mushrooms and place in a small frying pan. Then combine 2tbsp of soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp of sesame oil, 1/2 tbsp of five spice, 1tbsp of rice wine, 1/2 tbsp of sugar and cook. Continue to cook until the sauce becomes sticky.

Heat the pancakes in a microwave for 1 min. I used Gessingham pre-made pancakes.

Then at the table, assemble the pancakes by adding little mushrooms, spring onions, cucumber, a touch of kos and dab of hoisin and roll.

 

 

 

Kung Pao Paneer

This is one of my favourite dishes from my local Chinese. I love the hot sticky mess of the chicken and the sauce after a couple of cold beers, but I do recognise this is proper mental for calories, as the chicken has been cooked twice (once deep fried) and also coated in a sweet chilli sauce. So I needed to be on the lookout for a veg alternative. We had tried Kung Pao Tofu twice from different takeaways before, but they felt so poor, so I came up with this.

Ingredients: Paneer cheese, fresh ginger, water chestnuts, spring onions, dried chillis ( or fresh), sweet chilli sauce, dash of white vinegar, soy sauce and cornflour.

Preparation:

Cube half a packet of paneer and shallow fry in a little oil and then remove from the pan. Next, fry a large piece of ginger with dried or fresh red chillis with sliced spring onion and add a good few tables spoons of sweet chilli sauce, a large dollop of soy sauce, a splash of vinegar and a small sprinkling of cornflour. Mix well, so the cornflour does not go lumpy. Then add the paneer and heat through.

Serve with some basmati rice or some freshly prepared seaweed

 

Lazy noodle soup

This dish can easily be made at work. You just put all the ingredients together and keep the wet stuff away in small Sistema pots and finish with coriander. Simply pour boiling water and microwave for a few minutes. Much tastier than instant ramen noodles or pot noodles. But for this recipe, this will all be done at home.

Ingredients; straight to wok noodles, a few slices of fresh chilli, a few mangetout or green beans, a few baby sweetcorns, a small bit of red pepper, a couple of sliced mushrooms, veg stock gel, chilli garlic paste, coriander, a dash of sesame oil, soy sauce, lime

Preparation; Put half a gel pack of stock with a teaspoon of garlic chilli paste in a pan. Add enough boiling water to provide a large bowl. Then combine all the ingredients and simmer till the veg are cooked so around 5 minutes. When serving, add a tiny splash of the oil and chopped coriander and a squeeze of lime.

Stir fry vegetables noodles

Stir fry veg and noodles is always quick and a pretty easy way to get loads of your five a day. This recipe can make use what ever veg you have knocking around and is made a little more protein rich by the addition of walnuts. Ingredients; straight to wok noodles, sesame oil, Lee kum kee vegetarian stir fry sauce, yaki soba sauce, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, chilli, walnuts Preparation; slice the red pepper and whole chilli and fry in little sunflower oil. Next add the broccoli and mushrooms. You can microwave them in a little water to cook them first before adding the mix. This helps reduce any need to use lots of extra oil to stir fry. Add a good dollop of the veg stir fry sauce (about 2 tablespoons) and about half as much of the yaki soba sauce. Drop in a handful of walnuts. Then to finish, microwave the noodles for a minute and then add to the stir fry and serve nice and hot. Try and avoid making it to wet and watery as no-one wants a steamed stir fry. Serve with a few mini spring rolls and a little sweet chilli sauce