When it comes to quick and easy cooking, nothing beats the wok as a tool. Coming back to London after Christmas, I brought with me one of my old cookery books, one I found in a used book store somewhere ages ago. It is called "Food in a Wok", and contains exactly what it says on the cover.
Main reason I brought that book back is that when it comes to my day to day cooking like lunches and dinners during the week the most important keywords are just those: "quick" and "easy". In the weeks I usually cook for myself, don't have much time for fancy recipes, and I also want to make sure that I make enough food to get left overs for my next lunch or dinner minimising the time I have to put into my solitary cooking while optimising the value for money (cooking for one person, making one meal only every time, gets ridiculously expensive in the long run...).
Face it, cooking for yourself with the purpose of simply making a decent meal is the most boring kind. To me a big part of the enjoyment of cooking is to see other people respond to it. Good or bad, the instant feedback on people's faces makes it a great learning experience every time (and if it turns out good, it is also a nice little ego boost). When the only one who can give feedback is you, it gets sort of boring. And dining in front of a mirror looks silly.
Using the wok lets me make big batches of healthy, interesting and tasty food, while still having fun in the process (or rather, the short time spent on it weighs up for the fact that I am dining alone). That's why I love this cookery book. All the recipes are simple, straight forward, takes no more than 15 minutes to half an hour to make (excluding time for marinating, which is the secret of some of the really tasty recipes) and are based on every day available ingredients.
Today I made a particularly good dish, with some modifications to the original recipe. Already looking forward to eating the rest of it for lunch tomorrow...
One part of the book is recipes made with pasta (instead of rice or noodles). This is one of those recipes. It requires some simple marinating, but other than that from start to finish you are done in less than 20 minutes. The cookery book calls this Ma Po Sichuan noodles, but since I have altered the recipe quite a bit I don't think that name applies anymore... Let's call this Tasty and Spicy Fake Noodle Dish With Pork and Veggies That Will Feed You For Days If You Eat Alone. Yeah.
Ingredients (serves 4):
250 gr pork meat (for example bacon in strips)
Marinade:
2 tbsp sherry
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
2 spring onions, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp Sambal Oelek (or other chili paste)
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
black pepper
250 gr spaghetti
2-3 large top field mushrooms
3-4 carrots
1/4 of a broccoli head
2 spring onions, thinly sliced for decoration
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp Sambal Oelek (or other chili paste)
1 tsp corn flour
2 cups chicken stock from a cube
2 tbsp oil
Instructions:
Put a pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil for the spaghetti. Or save time (and energy!) by bringing the water to a boil in an electric kettle first, and then transfer it to the pot with the spaghetti.
Cut the bacon in strips and put with the marinade ingredients in a plastic bag. Make sure the contents of the bag are thoroughly mixed and then leave the meat to marinade for ten minutes.
While the meat soaks in the marinade, boil the spaghetti and prepare the rest of the dish.
Cut the mushrooms in bite sized pieces, slice the carrots and put it all in a pot with the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, Sambal Oelek, chicken stock and corn flour. Bring to a boil while stirring.
When the spaghetti is done, drain the water and add the pasta to the pot with the mushrooms and carrots. Break the broccoli in pieces and add to the pot.
Heat the oil in a wok on high heat, add the contents (all of it) of the marinade bag to the wok and fry it for a minute or two.
Drain away most of the liquid in the spaghetti pot and add the solid contents to the wok (keep some of the liquid though, it is really tasty).
Stir it all together and let some of the liquid boil away. Serve in bowls, decorated with the thinly sliced spring onions on top. Some nice salad and white bread on the side is a tasty addition.
Yum. Quick. Easy. Lots. Tasty.
By the way, I received a package from Pille at nami-nami the other day. It contained the much anticipated Estonian Kamatahvel chocolate substitute! Can't wait to try some of that.
