Singapore noodles, Vegan

 

Notes - 

1. Soy sauce can be added, if you choose to,  along with sesame oil. 
2. Other vegetables to add - Spring onions, cabbage, more garlic, bok choy. 

Soup-ey Ramen

Recipe for a soupy ramen after all the K-drama watching and drooling at the yummy food!

I didn't want to eat Maggi and the seasoning from instant noodles , hence this recipe.

Suggested replacements -
1. Replace Kimchi and sambal with chilli sauce
2. Add miso paste/powder for flavor along with the water in step 3. 

Cold not-sesame noodles Salad

No, even I don't know why this is named this way... I simply got inspired for this salad from the NY Times salad article and went ahead with it. :-)

However, the name makes this salad feel very exotic, at least to me ;-) If you love peanut butter, you will definitely LOVE the idea of this dressing. What's not to like about peanut butter mixed with soya sauce? :-)

Easy & Healthy Stir-Fry Noodles

Yeah, by now, it is known that I cannot cook something that doesn't a little health associated to it. That means, greens, fresh veggies, some protein etc.

So, this week was noodle mania week at home. I discovered Lotus Foods' Brown rice and millet noodles, and we love the consistency and taste of these.

This is an easy recipe that I made one weeknight.

Lo-Mein Noodles

Street-style Chinese noodles

Its not news to readers of this blog that I do not cook Chinese. But the husband does.

I don’t like Chinese food, even the one odd Manchurians. I, obviously didn’t try Chinese food during my stay in Hong Kong, thanks to the Oyster sauce they add always. The only place where I enjoyed Chinese food that I can think of so far was in InChin Bamboo Garden in Redmond, Washington, and that probably was because it was very spicy and Indian-ized.

Zucchini & Noodle salad

To end this month , I wanted to make a wholesome salad, something which could also be a meal by itself. Something that has all the flavours I like… :)

And that is the how this awesome salad was born, yet again inspired by the recipe listed on this article!

Soba Noodle salad with Asian peanut dressing

The ring of the words ‘Asian Peanut Dressing’ literally made me drool when I read this recipe first. And I knew I had to try the noodle salad with Asian peanut dressing.

The grated ginger and soya add a zing to the otherwise bland-in-a-salad peanut butter and thus a new dressing is born! :-)

Khao Soi, Thai style

The last time I tried something in this style , I had decided to make the Burmese version too... I had loved the method of eating curry with noodles so much that I now intend to make noodles this way only. :)

Veggies, Stirred & Fried

They say, never shop when you are hungry. Whoever this 'they' is, they are damn right! I feel this every time I see my pantry full of stuff that I cook rarely and tch-tched with regret... and this feeling is generally followed after a frantic gobbling up of whatever it is that I picked up during the shopping trip.

As usual, during my regular trip to Godrej Nature's Basket this weekend, I picked up tons of stuff, and only when I came home did I realize that I was starving, which indirectly was the reason for the pantry to overflow with stuff like Whole Wheat Noodles, Organic Mustard Paste, Balsamic Vinegar etc. Instead of waiting till all these live through their expiry period without even as much as being opened, I decided to make a meal out of all these and respond to the angry roars my stomach was giving me!

Veg Chop suey with Noodles

The other day, they served Veg chop suey noodles at snacks after a big fancy meeting at work. That was my first time tasting these… yeah, needless to say, am not a fan of Chinese food, and rarely even try them. But these noodles were served in a different fashion – noodles topped with curry and vegetables, and it wasn’t even tasty. All of the different elements in the dish were bland but the cook in me saw potential in the dish. My interest was piqued and I HAD to try this dish!

And hence the attempt to recreate my own version of Veg Chop Suey noodles…

Pad Thai noodles. Well, almost. :)

So here’s the deal with me. Turns out, I don’t just like cooking for myself, I HATE it. But then, paapi pet ka sawal hain. And I must make something to fill this stomach, and especially after the evening walk, with the stomach rumbling in spite of all the fruits I had, I needed to eat something super fast, and it had to be interesting so that I don’t ditch it midway. So I really had to think long and hard this evening.
Quite sometime back, when I had freshly discovered cooking Thai food at home, I bought myself a pack of rice vermicelli Thai noodles. Along with many other groceries that I buy , this one was put in the pantry, and was hence promptly forgotten. Only last week when the maid was cleaning up the pantry, did we discover a whole load of items that I bought, all in good intentions to be cooked and eaten. But then, they followed the Life Cycle of Groceries in my kitchen!
Its like this – I see something interesting in the aisles in the mall, I buy it immediately, and resolve to make something delicious with it the same evening, or at the max, the next. So this item sits on the kitchen platform, waiting to be cooked. Weekdays are typically busy weeks, and considering the husband’s dislike for anything that is not Andhra food, this does not get cooked during a weekday. I then plan to cook it over a weekend, and like all other weekends, either we end up eating some place out, or I am too tired to make something and so end up eating rice-dal (always the husband’s suggestion!). So after a week of sitting on the kitchen platform, its location is changed to the pantry unit, which is where it will sit till it is rediscovered by chance.
Basically - in my kitchen, matter does not change its form or shape or even state. It just changes its location ;-)

I have been thinking I should make something with those noodles all weekend, and this evening seemed to be the right time. I quickly searched for some noodle recipe. Yeah yeah, I know its simple and all,but given the non-noodle-y (literally also ;-)) person that I am, this being my first time ever, and I needed some guidance from those awesome people sitting in my computer.
Pad Thai seemed interesting, but the procedure to make it seemed a little complicated for my at-the-verge-of-fainting-due-to-exhaustion-brain. Moreover, the dutiful wife that I am (Ha ha ha!) I was waiting for the husband to get to home before I do some decent vegetable shopping. The veggie compartment in the fridge just revealed bell peppers. That’s all! And the meal had to be healthy and veggie too, right? Phew! I just picked up the recipe for the Pad Thai sauce, read the instructions on the packet of the noodles on how to cook them, and got started.
Ingredients1/2 Onion – Chopped vertically
1/4 of a bell pepper – Red, yellow and Green – Chopped vertically
Handful of peanuts, De-skinned
8-10 cloves of garlic – crushed. (I use a traditional mortar and pestle for this.)
1 tbsp sunflower oil
100 gms Thai rice vermicelli noodles (or any Thai noodles)
Salt – To taste
Chopped Coriander leaves – For garnish

For the Pad Thai sauce 1 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tsp red chilli powder
4 tbsps hot water
1/2 tbsp soya sauce
1 1/2 tbsp sugar


ProcedureCook the noodles per the instructions given on its packet. Mine said I should soak the noodles in normal water for 5 minutes and drain it.

Mix all the ingredients for sauce, and keep it aside.

In a wok, heat the oil. Add the onion, crushed garlic and let it cook till the onions get soft, and pinkish. Now add the bell peppers, and let them all fry on a medium flame for 5 mins.

Add half the amount of the sauce to the wok now, and let the vegetables simmer in this sauce. Cook till the sauce gets absorbed into the vegetables, for about 5 mins on a medium flame. Add required amount of salt.
Now add the noodles to the wok and toss the contents. Add the remaining sauce (you can reduce the quantity if you are not greatly into tamarind) to this, and cook on a medium flame, till the consistency of the noodles is dry, the noodles look cooked, and the sauce is absorbed.

Note:

1. The quantities ingredients given here are to suit just one person, for dinner. You can easily increase the quantities
2. The instructions are suited to make almost-Pad-Thai noodles because the recipe I read over the internet for Pad Thai did not have peanuts, and I cannot imagine anything Thai without peanuts.
3. Bell Peppers are what I used. You can use any vegetables. Carrots, beans, sprouts, Chinese cabbage, cabbage. Anything.
4. If you are not as much into garlic as I am (I always double up the number of garlic cloves in any recipe!), feel free to cut it down. But trust me, it wouldn’t be as tasty without garlic
5. If you feel that your noodles could do with a little more tanginess, you can drizzle lemon juice on them before digging in. :)