I came across this recipe in ‘The New York Times Cooking’ and tested it out on the little boys last week – they LOVED it.
Noodle dishes are the best sort of family meals as they combine all the foods that you are constantly told to eat and feed your children in just the right amounts…….some meat for protein, lots of vegetables for minerals and vitamins, noodles for carbohydrate and loads of flavoursome ingredients to make it taste phenomenal.
I’ve upped the quantities of some of the flavour ingredients from the original recipe as I felt the original recipe was a bit too delicate, I like a kick of flavour.
If you’ve got a cupboard full of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and black vinegar, then it’s a an inexpensive family meal. Otherwise, the initial outlay for the Chinese ingredients can be fairly steep, but on the plus side they will last for years in the cupboard!
I made the recipe below without the bird’s eye red chilli as my little boys (they are 5 and 3 years old now) don’t like it spicy. I love some heat, so I and my husband always have a jar of Chiu Chow Chilli Oil, (made in China by Lee Kum Kee) on standby to add to our plate of noodles once they are cooked to add a bit of fire.
Miraculous ingredients: mince pork (free range or organic), Clearspring dark or tamari soya sauce
Spicy ginger pork noodles with pak choy
Ingredients
500g baby pak choy, cut lengthwise through the middle and then in half
3cm piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped
250g rice noodles (don’t use the vermicelli noodles as they are too thin)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
500g minced pork (free range or organic will always taste better)
270ml dark or tamari soya sauce (Clearspring)
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
4 spring onions, finely sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 fresh bird’s eye red chilli, finely sliced
3 tablespoons sesame oil (Clearspring)
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
Fresh coriander and basil to serve
Method
Prepare all the ingredients first as once you start cooking they must be added quickly to the pan.
Cook the rice noodles to the manufacturer’s instructions. Drain the noodles in a colander, run them under cold water (this will remove the starch and stop them from sticking) and drain again.
Heat a large dry frying pan over a medium heat for a few minutes. Add 1½ tablespoons of vegetable oil to the pan and all the pork mince. Break up the mince with a spatula and fry until cooked through, approx. 8 minutes. Don’t overcook the pork as it will become tough and dry, but just get past the pink stage. Mix in 30mls soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar. Transfer the pork to a bowl.
Add half the finely sliced spring onions, all the finely chopped ginger, garlic and chilli to the pan. Cook for about 1 minute. Add all the pak choy, stir and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the cooked pork mince to the frying pan and stir.
In the meantime, flavour the rice noodles in the bowl before adding to the vegetables and pork. Add 240mls of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar to the noodles and mix.
Add the flavoured noodles to the frying pan and mix well with the pork and pak choy. Turn off the heat and drizzle all the sesame oil over the dish.
Serve the ginger pork rice noodles with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds, some finely sliced spring onion, coriander and basil leaves.
Preparation time 10 minutes, cooking 20 minutes, 2 adult portions, 2 child portions