What We Ate Wednesday--Singapore Noodles

Hello lovelies! We often have noodle bowls on low energy nights as rice noodles cook in three minutes and you can just chuck some sauteed veg in there with some sauce and call it a night. Singapore Noodles are a wee bit more work, but oh so good. The sauce is sweet, sour, tangy, spicy and yum.

I adapted this from  www.minimalistbaker.com/vegan-singapore-noodles and it is mostly the same, but with a few money saving changes.

Minimalist Baker uses tofu and I use chickpeas. Why the swap? A packet of 200g tofu costs me £2.09. A 400g tin of chickpeas (drained weight 240g) costs me 33p. You do the math.

Plus chickpeas are low in fat, high in fibre and protein and full of minerals like copper, folate, and manganese.

I like to roast my marinated chickpeas in the oven (you know how I love roasting chickpeas!) but the sauce has sugar in it and can caramelise and stick to the bottom of your pan and make a frightful mess, so I would suggest using parchment paper just to save your sanity. (and your pan)

You could also use regular old spaghetti here for your noodles, but I like the three minutes rice noodles. Besides we didn't have any spaghetti to hand, so I wasn't just going to buy something when I already had something that would work just as well.

Singapore Noodles
Preheat your oven to 200C/400F
Line a roasting pan with parchment paper.

The marinade(s)
Minimalist Baker calls for doubling the marinade and then dividing it equally --I can't cope with that. I found it easier to just make the sauce in two separate bowls. So if you can cope, double the sauce recipe below and divide in half. If you can't, then make the sauce below twice and put it in two separate containers.
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp grated ginger root
2 TB tamari (or soy sauce)
1-2TB sugar (I used demerara)
3 TB lime juice (fresh is great, but I used a squeezy bottle and it was fine) 
pinch of red pepper flakes
*Remember to make twice*

The veg:
1 onion, cut into rainbows
half a pepper
half a large carrot, cut into matchsticks
Either 1 cup frozen peas or some sugar snap peas or mange tout. (I normally use frozen peas, but Lidl had 250g packets of sugar snap peas on sale last week for 69p so I bought one and used 50g on a Thai pizza and the rest in the Singapore noodles.  I bought the sugar snaps in order to have these two meals. This is called planning! Spiderman would call it smug.)
6 button mushrooms, diced (optional)
1 TB toasted sesame oil
2 tsp curry powder (again this is something I didn't have to hand so I used 1.5 tsp garam masala and 1/2 a tsp turmeric. Problem solved.)

For the roast chickpeas:
1 tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 container of marinade
Stir to coat. Bake for 15 minutes, remove from the heat and stir then bake for 10 more. The chickpeas will absorb the sauce and go all sticky and crazy delicious.

Cooking the veg:
1. Meanwhile, heat the TB of toasted sesame oil in the pan and cook your onion.
2. When the onion is soft then add in the rest of the vegetables and mushrooms (if using) and cook until crisp tender. Add the curry powder and stir to coat.
I had to take it off the heat as the chickpeas weren't ready and that is fine. If you finish early, remove from heat, deal with the noodles and by then the chickpeas will be ready.
3. Cook your three minute noodles with a kettle full of boiling water and drain.
4. Add the other container of sauce to the veg and heat until the sauce bubbles. Add your drained noodles and roasted chickpeas and dig in.

I notice we have been eating quite a lot of chickpeas lately. They are cheap and they are nutritious, so it really is no wonder. But perhaps you are tired of chickpeas. "When a man is tired of chickpeas, he is tired of life," That's what Samuel Johnson really wanted to say. But in case you are, best beloved, I am planning to cook that Louisiana standard Red Beans and Rice soon and I will blog about that.

Happy eating!