Tag Archives: noodle stir fry

In my family, my dad is the Noodle King.

Born in Penang, home to the mighty Asam Laksa, my dad came out to Australia in the 60s as a high school student. Back then, there was only one or two Asian restaurants in Adelaide and both were Chinese. So if dad wanted to eat the hawker dishes of his childhood like Char Kway Teow (fried rice noodles), Asam Laksa (sour fish noodle soup), Curry Laksa, Har Mee (prawn noodle soup), Sar Hor Fun (‘wet’ fried rice noodles) and Sambal Udang (prawn sambal), he had to learn to cook them himself.

And so he did.

Asian street food devotees may argue that you can never truly recreate the taste of a hawker dish in a domestic kitchen: they say that the wok doesn’t get hot enough and the ingredients are not the same. They say too, that it’s about the atmosphere – the sheer satisfaction of eating a bowl of $AUD2 noodles on a plastic stool underneath a furiously spinning fan at your favourite hawker restaurant can never truly be replicated.

That may be true but why should we not try to reach for those moments? After all, a little bit of love is better than none, isn’t it?

When my grandmother was alive she would cook her Asam Laksa paste and her Sambal Hebi (dried shrimp sambal) each time we visited Malaysia. We would freeze them in plastic bags and wrap them in old newspaper to bring home to Australia. Later, when I was working overseas, my parents brought me these precious parcels and whenever I was homesick I would use them as the base to create the dishes from my childhood. It made me feel connected and loved.

I’m working with Bertolli at the moment, developing Asian-style dishes for them using their light olive oil. The first recipe I made for them was a Beef Stir Fry and recently, I made this Lobster Noodle Stir Fry, based on my dad’s recipe. It’s not a dish he ate growing up, rather, it’s a dish that he makes for special occasions that the whole family enjoys. To watch my three year old niece slurp up these noodles is to witness pure joy.

Eat the love.

Tell me, dear reader, what are your most cherished family recipes?

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We’ve been cooking a lot of stir fries lately – they’re easy and quick to prepare, you can use whatever you have in the fridge, you only need one cooking pan and dinner is on the table within minutes.

It’s convenience food but way better than anything you could heat up out of a box.

You could substitute the chicken with prawns, beef fillet, firm tofu cut into squares or fried tofu puffs.

INGREDIENTS

400 grams chicken thighs, trimmed, and cut into small pieces.
100 grams cauliflower, cut into florets
100 grams green beans, trimmed and cut into pieces
100 grams cabbage, shredded
1 onion, peeled and diced
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger (optional)
2 tablespoons light soy sauce, plus 3-4 tablespoons extra for serving
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
Few drops sesame oil (optional)
1 tablespoon corn flour
1 packet noodles suitable for stir frying e.g. hokkien or flat rice (kway teow) noodles, prepared as per packet instructions.
2 Birds Eyes chillis

METHOD

Marinate chicken in soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, black pepper and cornflour for at least half an hour or overnight in the fridge.

Make dipping sauce by chopping up chillis and adding to 3 tablespoons light soy sauce.

Heat up a wok or large fry pan. Add one tablespoon of vegetable oil and fry garlic, ginger and onion over low heat for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally.

Brown chicken, stirring occassionally, then add beans, cauliflower and cabbage. Stir to combine. Put lid on and turn down heat. Let cook for a couple of minutes.

Take lid off pan and set lid aside. Add noodles to pan, stirring vigorously to combine for a couple of minutes until the noodles are heated through and browning nicely.

Serve immediately with dipping sauce. I like adding the chillis directly to my plate as per the photos but you can just dash a few drops of the now hot soya sauce over your noodles for a less explosive experience.