Vegetable Hakka Noodles

This was our lunch today…for a change..After all, who does not like Chinese food? I remember making Maggi noodles when I was in College only for myself as no one else at home ate Chinese food. I was very fond of Noodles then (not so much now) and I thankfully remember my Uncle M who used to buy me Noodles from Bimbis (a restaurant in Cochin, not sure if it is still there..). Those were real treats for me. After marriage, I tried making Hakka noodles quite a few times but they were all disasters!!! Several times, the dish had turned to a mushy lump of noodles (can be rightly called as noodle cake) and poor my husband would become speechless (as he did not know how to respond to a pathetic dish made by his wife). This kept on happening till I watched a video of Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor in which he explains how the noodles should be cooked. I could understand where I was going wrong. I am trying to explain the whole process. However, you can watch Chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s video here. Enough of talking now. Let’s look into the recipe..

Ingredients:

Method:

1. Take enough water in a big pot or sauce pan. Bring it to boil and add noodles with enough salt. I also added a few drops of oil. This is optional.

2. The noodles should be cooked to 80 percent (slightly under cooked). This is the most important step to retain the texture of the noodles and this was exactly where I was going wrong before.

3. Drain the noodles. Keep the noodles in a vessel filled with cold water. You can also use ice cubes. This helps in bringing out the starch in noodles. Keep this aside.

4. In a wok or wide pan, add oil. Let the oil be heated and then add the onions. You can also add the spring onions (white part). The wok or pan should be on medium high heat at this point.

5. Once the onions are translucent, add the veggies one by one and saute them at high heat. Make sure not to burn the veggies. Stir or toss them continuously. Add salt for the veggies.

6. Once the veggies are half done, add soya sauce and green chilli sauce. Mix well.

7. Finally add the noodles (after discarding the water) and mix it well with the veggies. Since the noodles is not 100 percent cooked, it will not become mushy. Add more salt if necessary.

8. Switch off the flame and serve hot with any kind of chinese side dish. We just had it with tomato ketchup.

I hope you liked the recipe. I will be back soon with another quick, easy and healthy recipe..