Chinese Fried Noodle

My boy is a noodle lover. He loves almost all types of noodles except vermicelli aka 'bee hoon'. My girl is more adventurous with food but still she practically prefers noodles more than rice. Thier favourite version of noodle is flat wheat noodle with oats tossed with homemade seasonings which combine a few sauces like light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and fried onions with a little of its oil which is the most important ingredient for non-soup based noodle.

This simple seasonings mixture was created by my mum and it is the easiest and quickest way to flavour the noodle without frying. We usually have this version of noodle with sliced fish or fish ball soup with spinach, fried egg or/and fried pork chop cutlet.

Though my children loves instant noodles, I hardly cook them. Instead I would prefer to buy dried noodles made of wheat or rice flour. Dried noodles that have no colouring, preservatives or with the least/no chemicals added in will top my choice of purchase. In this post, I would like to share with you also some of the Chinese dried noodles that I keep in my pantry.

 

This is 'Lanzhou Noodles' that I used to cook for this noodle recipe. This noodle is flat and broad and it looks something like linguine. In terms of texture it turns soggy quite easily and so long there is heat and gravy, it will keep absorbing the gravy. It is very soft and easily breakable once cooked. So for this brand I would suggest to watch your cooking time carefully.

 

This is a thick version of mee sua. I have cooked it in both wet and dry version and it is salted a little. It is soft but it doesn't turn soggy too easily and quickly. It tastes good for both dry or wet version. It is more versatile than the Lanzhou noodle.

This is the flat wheat noodle with oats that I bought in Yong Peng, Johor Bahru. It is made of wheat flour, oats, water and salt. To me, it is the best choice of all Chinese dried noodles as it requires the least touch up. I have never tried frying this noodle as it is so good to have it just plainly tossed with simple flavourful and tasty seasonings. It is high in protein and fibre and the texture is excellent. It is chewy and a little tender and it doesn't absorb much of the gravy once cooked so it will not turn soggy easily even if you soak it in hot gravy or soup. However you need to blanch the noodle slightly longer in hot boiling water to fully cook it. In Singapore, I could only find the version comes without oats.

This is Taiwanese dry noodle. It is broader than the flat wheat noodle with oats and it has slightly fluted edges which are thinner than the center part. It is chewier and the absorption of gravy is quite low. 

For this recipe, I have used more vegetables and minimise the use of meat and seafood.

Ingredients

3/4 packet of Lanzhou Noodle
1 pot of water
1 cup Snow Peas
1 medium sized Carrot
1 cup Pork Fillet, sliced
1 bulb of Garlic
1 tbsp Oil
6 birds of chilli padi

Seasoning
3 cups of Boiling Water
1 tsp Chicken Bouillon Granules
2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
2 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
2 - 3 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 tsp sugar
Dash of sesame oil
Dash of pepper

Method

1. Remove the strings of the snow peas, cut them into half. Peel off the skin of the carrot and shred it. Set all aside.

2. Mix all the seasonings and set aside.

3. Heat up a pot of water in high temperature and let it come to a rolling boil. Blanch the noodle in high temperature first then medium until it is about 70% cook. Drain the noodle soak it in cool running pipe water and set aside.

4. Add 1 tbsp of oil and fry garlic until fragrant and a little brown. Add in the vegetables and stir fry for about 1 minute. Then add in the sliced pork fillet and stir fry about 30 seconds.

5. Add the seasonings mixture and let it boil. Add noodle. Cook for about 2 minutes or less and switch off the fire.


6. Cut the chilli paddy and mix it with 1 tbsp light soy sauce in a saucer. Serve the noodle immediately together with the sauce.

Notes

1. The noodle turns soggy pretty fast so make sure you use hot boiling water to combine the seasonings. Other wise if you use just warm water to mix together all the seasonings, you may add only the seasoning mixture first in step 5 and let it come to a boil before adding in the noodle.

2. Add any crunchy vegetables that you prefer like capsicum, baby corn, celery and french beans. You may add slice dried mushroom to enhance the flavour.

3. If you do not serve this immediately, once cook remove the noodle from the gravy and gently stir the noodle to let out the hot steam. When you are ready to serve reheat the gravy and add a bit of water if need be and pour into the noodle and mix. I find that this help prevent the noodle from turning very soggy and dry.