Vegetable Chow Mein Fakeaway

I love a good takeaway as much as the next person. Chinese, Indian, pizza, buger and fries, the lilst goes on. Although afterwards I always feel guilty about the price, the calories, the grease, how late it is because delivery took forever. So I'm on a mission to create my favourites at home. Cheaper, easy, quick and tasty is the aim.

First up is chow mein inspired by Ziang's Food Workshop on YouTube. They have loads of chinese takeaway recipes on their channel. Most have meat in them, but I just adapt them to be meat free.

I've tried this with dried egg noodles from the supermarket and it's just not the same. Nor is it quite right without the use of MSG. Both of with you can buy online from Tradewinds at a really reasonable price. I bought 9kg of noodles and have them squirreled away all over the house.

I used a wok to make mine, but a good lagre frying pan would work just as well. If you're looking for a new wok, School of Wok do a great range of very reasonably price.

If you have pre-prepared vegetables this should take around 10 minutes and depending how fast you can chop no more than 20 minutes.

Serves 2-4
Time - 20 minutes

Ingredients

2 large or 4 small blocks of dried noodles
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion ,sliced
1 red pepper, roughly chopped
100g white mushrooms, quartered
80g frozen garden peas
150g beansprouts
1 tsp salt
1 tsp msg
2 tbsp premium light soy sauce
2 tbsp premium dark soy sauce

Method

1. Cook your noodles according to the packet instructions. Once cooked, drain and rinse well with cold water to stop them from sticking. Place to one side.
2. Wash and prepare you vegetables. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan on a medium to high heat.
3. Pop your onions into the heated oil. Careful it may spit. Add the msg and salt and cook on a high heat for around a minute or so.
4. Add your vegetables and cook for a further couple of minutes before adding the rinsed noodles. Continue to cook on a high heat, stirring or tossing the wok every 15 - 30 seconds, allowing the noodles to catch but not stick.
5. Now to add the soy sauces and the beansprouts and cook for 3 or 4 minutes until the beansprouts are cooked. Serve Immediately.