Hakka Noodles

Hakka Noodles

My daughter is a very picky eater but would gladly polish her plate off when I prepare this dish. I stopped at the local Chinese grocery store to pick a pack of Hakka noodles with dreams of making this recipe. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't find it in their dry noodles aisle!
My husband asked a store clerk for help and he pointed us to the Indian goods aisle :) Looks like Hakka Noodles is truly Indian and hardly Chinese...

Ingredients

• Dry Hakka Noodles - 2 packs (200 gms each)
• Carrots, diced or matchstick cut - 1/4 cup
• Green Beans, sliced or french cut - 1/4 cup
• Sweet peas or broccoli florets, frozen - 1/4 cup
• Chopped Cabbage, optional - 1/4 cup
• Tomato ketchup  or Tomato Chilli Sauce - 2 tbsp
• Reduced Sodium Soy sauce - 2 tbsp
• Vinegar - 1 tsp
• Green onions, sliced thin - 1 bunch, divided
• sesame oil - 2 tbsp, divided
• garlic, sliced - 5 cloves
• Egg - 1

Method:

1. Fill a soup pot with enough water for the 2 packs of Hakka noodles. Add salt and 1 tbsp sesame oil. Cover and bring to a boil.
2. I prefer to crush the noodle cakes, as it makes lunch time easy for my daughter. You can skip this step if you prefer long noodle strands.
3. Add the noodles to the boiling water and let boil, uncovered for 4 minutes.
4. Crack open the egg in a small bowl and whisk it with a fork to blend the egg white and yolk.
5. Drain and toss noodles and while it is still hot, pour in the egg mixture. The egg will get cooked in the remnant heat of the noodles and form a nice coating on each noodle strand.
6. Have the rest of the ingredients ready now as you need to cook the rest in a stir fry fashion.
7. In a separate saucepan, heat 1 tbsp sesame oil.
8. When the oil is smoking hot, add garlic and fry until very light brown.
9. Remove the garlic. Now add carrots and green beans and sprinkle salt and pepper. Stir fry until slightly cooked but still crisp. Stir in the sweet peas. I have used broccoli also, with good results.
10. Add soy sauce, ketchup/sauce to the pan. Add back the sauteed garlic, as well.
11. Now empty the contents of the saucepan in to the pot of noodles and stir well. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
12. Serve garnished with green onions.

This one pot meal (well almost, if you discount the pot for boiling noodles) is an excellent week day meal and does well in a Bento.

Hakka Noodles Bento

The fancy-cut carrot garnish makes the dish extra tasty, for my daughter!

Linking to Kid’s delight post aat