A Little Help For Friday Night Dinner

Today during lunch I drove to the Asian market and picked the ingredients for tonight's dinner.  In the back of the store I noticed their BBQ pork and could not resist.  It can seem a little sketchy buying cooked meat hanging in the back of a store, something about it just seems off.  But trust me if you ever get the chance to buy some BBQ meats at an Asian market GO FOR IT!  It’s like candy and is so tender and juicy.  And for $7.59/lb you can’t go wrong and it turns a quick Friday night meal into a masterpiece.

A lot of Asian cooking can seem intimidating and time consuming because they have a lot ingredients and vegetables to chop.  Trust me it really isn’t that bad once you get going and it takes no time to cook everything once all of the prep work is done.

Here is what it all looks like before it goes into the skillet.

And once it’s all stir fried up

The end result was great.  While I was eating it I thought it would be perfect hangover food, reheated in the morning…just saying.  I did add extra hot sauce to my bowl, I like it spicy, and next time I might add a few chillies to the mix.

So if you’ve always wanted to try a stir fry, go for it!  Just get everything prepped before you heat up the pan because once you start cooking it’ll go really quick!

BBQ Pork Noodles

Ingredients

• ¼ cup dried mushrooms
• 3/4 lb. dry rice noodles
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Oyster Sauce
• 1 tbsp sambal oelek
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 4 medium scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced (1/2 cup)
• 3 medium cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 1/2 lb Chinese BBQ Pork, cut into strips
• 1 medium red pepper, sliced into half inch strips
• 2 medium carrots, cut into matchsticks
• ½ cup sliced mushrooms
• 2 cups bean sprouts
• 1 handful fresh mint
  

Directions

1. Boil a large pot of water, once it is boiling remove ¾ cup of hot water add the dried mushrooms to the bowl and set aside for 20 minutes.  Add dry rice noodles to the hot water and cook until tender, 3-5 minutes. Drain well and rinse under cold water and drain again, be sure to get out as much water as possible.
2. In a small bowl combine corn starch, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sambal oelek.
3. Remove mushroom from hot water and squeeze out excess liquid into the bowl. Reserve the mushroom broth and dice the mushrooms.
4. Heat the sesame oil in a large skillet or a wok, over High heat.  When the oil is shimmering and very hot, about 3 minutes, add scallions, garlic and ginger, fry for 1 minute until fragrant. 
5. Add pork, red pepper, carrots and mushrooms and stir fry until vegetables are tender but not soft, about 3 minutes.
6. Add reserved mushroom broth and corn starch mixture, heat until bubbling.
7. Toss in cooked noodles, sprouts and mint until well coated.
8. Serve immediately.

ENJOY!