Quick and Healthy – Asian Noodle Dishes

Somehow, I have always preferred noodles or flour-derived products instead of just plain rice and so I used to pester my mum to cook noodle dishes instead of the usual Chinese dishes paired with rice.

From wok-fried, to having them soupy or served with sauce, I love them all. Here I would like to share 2 recipes, both of which are my favourites.

#1 Mushroom Chicken Soup Noodle

This is perfect for a wintery day since the soup helps warm you up while you enjoy a one-dish delicious meal. Before preparing this dish, have some chicken broth pre-cooked and stored so that you can use the needed portions whenever you want.

Ingredients (serves 2):

• Rice Noodles (or egg or wonton noodles if you prefer them) – enough for two
• 1 whole chicken leg
• 2 bowls of chicken stock
• 1 ½   bowl of water
• 2 pinches of salt
• 5 fresh Shiitake mushrooms (chopped)
• 1 tablespoon of cooking oil
• 2 tablespoons of light soya sauce
• 5 cloves of garlic (thinly sliced)
• 2 tablespoons of chinese rice wine
• a pinch of white pepper powder
• coriander/ spring onion for garnishing (chopped)

Steps:

1. First, heat up the 1 ½   bowl of water in a pot and add in the chicken leg and the salt when the water starts boiling. Cook the chicken for around 20 minutes.
2. Once cooked, remove the chicken from the pot, remove the chicken skin and start shredding the meat of the chicken into small pieces and set it aside. You can add the meatless bone back into the pot to continue boiling it.
3. Add the 2 bowls of chicken stock into the pot which you boiled the chicken in and let it simmer slowly.
4. In a pan, heat up the oil and sauté the garlic until the aroma arises. Then, add in the Shiitake mushrooms, stirring them amongst the garlic, then add the light soya sauce and rice wine. Then turn down the heat and let it simmer until the liquid more or less evaporated.
5. Follow the cooking instructions of the noodle of your choice. Once cooked, drain the water and divide them into two bowls.
6. Divide up the shredded chicken and place them on top of the noodles. Then add the sautéed mushrooms on top.
7. Once done, add the soup until it almost cover all the ingredients in the bowl.
8. Add the white pepper powder in the middle and garnish with the coriander/spring onion  before serving.

If you are not too keen on the strong Shiitake taste, you may want to replace it with oyster mushrooms, which you might like to use 8 – 10 pieces for this recipe.

#2 Seafood sauce flat noodles

This is inspired from what the Malaysians believed to be a Southern Thai dish which is called “lad na”, although the real origin seems to be that it is a Laotian-Chinese dish. Here is my version.

Ingredients (serves two):

• flat rice noodles (enough for two)
• ½ thumb of ginger, thinly sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 small squids, chopped into edible pieces
• 6 fresh shrimps
• ½ bowl of chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon of cornflour, stirred into ½ cup of water
• 4 baby corns, sliced into half lengthwise
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 2 tablespoon of cooking oil
• 2 tablespoons of dark thick soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce
• salt to taste

Steps:

1. If you managed to get fresh flat rice noodles, then heat up 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok and stir fry the noodles with the dark thick soya sauce on a high flame. Once all the noodles are evenly coloured, turn down the flame and remove the noodles into a big serving dish that can accommodate the sauce.

(If you bought dry flat noodles, just boil them before stir frying them as indicated above)

1. Heat the rest of the remaining oil in the same wok, add in the ginger and garlic and stir fry them until the aroma arises.
2. Add in the spinach and when the leaves start shrinking, add in the squids, shrimps and baby corns, and toss them around the wok for 2 minutes while mixing in the light soya sauce.
3. Add in the chicken stock and when the mixture start boiling, mix in the salt and the cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce.
4. Once the sauce starts to bubble, turn off the heat and pour the contents of the wok onto the flat noodles and your dish is now ready to be served!

Optional: For those who like the sauce to have traces of egg, you can crack an egg into the sauce and stir it constantly to distribute the egg evenly, until the sauce starts bubbling.

I hope the above recipes would be titillating to your taste buds. Stay tune for more noodle recipes to come!