Next on the
line is my son's favourite and on demand by a dear friend of mine... It's that
roadside style, irresistible, yet healthy 'chowmein' or hakka noodles as we
know.
There are
lot of variations that you can do to this recipe and serves as a healthy and yummy
snack for kids of all age groups..well, not just kids trust me.. will surely hit off
with your friends and family too!
Let's begin
with the ingredients for this.. You would obviously need hakka noodles :).
Choice of hakka noodles is purely your choice. I will though tell you what I
use; I usually go with eggless 100% wheat noodles. Next comes the veggies that
would go in - carrots, capsicum, cabbage and onions. You may wish to add more
veggies like beans, mushrooms, babycorn..
For
seasoning, you would need to have soy and tomato sauces. Other optional sauces
include lemongrass flavoured hot & sweet sauce, pepper sauce, green chilly
sauce and may be some white vinegar too.. Well, I am using just the soy (medium
dark) sauce and some tomato ketchup in this recipe, and will leave the addition of other sauces to your
taste buds and creativity! Apart from the sauces, you will need salt, white and black
pepper powders for seasoning. I somehow do not recommend the use of MSG
(ajinomoto), which is typically used in the roadside and restaurant chowmein, for all its harmful effects on health, particularly when you are cooking for kids. Ajinomoto though does provide that unique flavor to your noodles
that you get at those roadside thelas..
Preparation
is pretty simple, just few key tips to keep in mind..
Start with boiling water in a large vessel with 2 tsp of cooking oil and 2 tsp of regular salt. While the water comes to boil, you could prepare the veggies...I generally shred onions, cabbage, capsicum and cut thin juliens of carrots. Watch out for nicks and cuts while doing this! Ok, by the time you will prepare your veggies, water would have come to a boil. It's time to put in your noodles. Breaking the noodle bars into smaller pieces, helps having shorter strands of cooked noodles. It generally takes not more than 3-4 minutes of boiling time to cook noodles to the optimum state. Once the noodles are cooked 75-80%, it's time to take them out of the boiling pot. It's extremely crucial to immediately get the noodles out in a strainer and have cold water run through it. This steps ensures that the noodles do not get any more softened than the desired extent. Another important step is to apply some cooking oil through the noodles, so that the boiled noodles do not stick together because of its starch..
Start with boiling water in a large vessel with 2 tsp of cooking oil and 2 tsp of regular salt. While the water comes to boil, you could prepare the veggies...I generally shred onions, cabbage, capsicum and cut thin juliens of carrots. Watch out for nicks and cuts while doing this! Ok, by the time you will prepare your veggies, water would have come to a boil. It's time to put in your noodles. Breaking the noodle bars into smaller pieces, helps having shorter strands of cooked noodles. It generally takes not more than 3-4 minutes of boiling time to cook noodles to the optimum state. Once the noodles are cooked 75-80%, it's time to take them out of the boiling pot. It's extremely crucial to immediately get the noodles out in a strainer and have cold water run through it. This steps ensures that the noodles do not get any more softened than the desired extent. Another important step is to apply some cooking oil through the noodles, so that the boiled noodles do not stick together because of its starch..
Time to get your veggies cooked. For this, you will first need to heat some oil in a wide, preferably flat base wok. Saute onion till it turns translucent, and then add carrots, followed by cabbage and capsicum. Each vegetable would need about 1-2 minutes of saute time.
Once the
veggies are done, add generous amount of sauces and sprinkle some crushed
pepper powders (white and black). I would actually let you decide the ratios of
different sauces depending on your taste buds... Lot of other variations can be
done to these noodles. Just add scrambled eggs or shredded boiled chicken or
pan fried prawns as per your delight! Vegetarians can do a lot of variations with veggies that go into these noodles...
I usually
make these noodles for my little one, who likes his food close to bland, so
this is how the noodles that I made look like...
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