I’m an equal opportunity noodle lover, just like I’m an equal opportunity dumpling lover (guys, I think I just love dough?), so I’m always especially thrilled when I can nail a really good dish of them at home. While I consider this broad noodle category to include pasta (more on that to come- I just got a new pasta extruder that I recently took for a spin!), the dishes I get most excited about are from southeast Asia. Every time I get my hands on a Thai takeout menu I swear I’m ordering a healthy(ish) stir-fry and end up with pad see ew.
I’ve got a lot of “authentic” cookbooks from various parts of the world, and there’s a lot of noodles in them. And while I trust Ottolenghi’s recipes implicitly for perfect, vaguely Middle Eastern food (I’ve been sharing a lot of Ottolenghi lately, huh?), his recipe for these Malaysian street noodles had me furrowing my brow a little. But just for a minute, because when I read the list of ingredients it made a lot of sense and it promised to be ready in basically no time at all. Sold.
Stir-fries are usually very quick to actually cook, but sometimes call for a lot of chopping prep. This one did not. Some shredded bok choy and green beans and sliced tofu, really. Some diced onions. No carrots julienned to 1mm wide. A very simple spice mixture (ground cumin and coriander) and a combination of two soy sauces and some sambal oelek. The noodles do need to cook in advance for a few minutes in a pot of boiling water, so make sure you do that or you’ll have a doughy mess in your wok (not saying this has happened to me in the past, but also not saying it hasn’t).
Despite its fairly limited ingredient list (for a stir-fry, at least), the flavor profile of the final dish is really complex. It’s bright but earthy, thanks to the cumin, and has a good kick of spice. I felt it needed a little more soy sauce and sambal oelek, and have reflected that in the recipe below. I loved it so much that a few days later, I used the same flavors to cook up some other random ingredients in the fridge to eat over rice, and loved it almost as much as the original.
I guess the moral of this story is to keep an open mind in the kitchen, and when something looks good you should give it a whirl. Because sometimes your favorite Malaysian street noodle recipe is going to come from the vegetarian cookbook of one of London’s preeminent Middle Eastern chefs- and that is perfectly alright.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons peanut oil
- 1/2 onion, diced
- 8 oz. extra firm tofu, cut into 3/8-inch-thick strips
- 4 oz. green beans, trimmed and cut in half at an angle
- 4 oz. choi sum or bok choy, cut into large chunks (both leaves and stalks)
- 11 oz. fresh egg noodles (cooked)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 3 teaspoons sambal oelek (or another savory chile paste), plus extra to serve
- 2 teaspoon thick soy sauce
- 3 teaspoons light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon water
- 2 oz. mung bean sprouts
- Handful of shredded iceberg lettuce
- 1 tablespoon of crisp-fried shallots
- Lemon wedges to serve
Instructions
- Set a wok or a large pan on high heat. Once hot, add the oil and then the onion, and cook for about 1 minute to soften a bit. Add the tofu and green beans and cook for 2 to 3 minutes to give the tofu a bit of color. Stir gently as you cook, trying not to break up the tofu.
- Next, add the choi sum. When it wilts, add the noodles and carefully spread them in the wok using tongs or large chopsticks. You want the noodles to get a lot of heat, almost to fry. Mix gently, cooking the noodles for about 2 minutes. Now add the spices, sambal oelek, soy sauces, water and bean sprouts and toss carefully. Cook for about a minute, or until the noodles are semisoft.
- When ready, top with lettuce, transfer to serving bowls and sprinkle with crisp shallots. On the side, serve lemon wedges and a small bowl of extra sambal oelek.
Notes
Adapted from Plenty
