eatbensmeat

This is like…my new favorite thing.  As near as I can tell, Nepalese food is basically a cross between Chinese and Indian cooking.  Which, looking at a map, makes perfect sense.  But it’s kind of a weird and wonderful mashup of flavors that I never would have thought of before.

This does make a lot, more than I honestly expected when I was at the store just kind of going “ooh that would be good, oh and that would be good too, ooh and some of that…”  It kind of got away from me. So you almost certainly want to cut this in half.  You should also feel free to swap out the vegetables for whatever you want.  The ones I used are pretty much the things that caught my eye in the store.

Also, I tried a slightly different cooking method here.  Usually with a stir fry (which at the end of the day, is what this is) you would want to just chuck all your veggies in a hot wok and fry them up really fast.  I had so much that I couldn’t do that, because most of the veggies couldn’t maintain contact with the metal and fry up.  So I cooked things in phases, and as they were done for that phase I would migrate the things that were done cooking in to a bowl.  Then at the end I just threw everything together.  It worked better than I thought it would.  Tasted fine.  If you want to cook everything at once, go nuts on that too.  Add the sauce to your sauteed meat and veggies at the end, and cook for 2-3 minutes before you stir in the noodles.

So, here it is

Ingredients

For the stir fry:

2 pounds chicken, diced

1 pound rice noodles (can substitute with spaghetti if you want, just undercook it by 2 minutes, drain, and set aside until you’re ready to stir fry)

1 red bell pepper, diced

1-2 cups cabbage, diced

1 onion, diced

1/2 pound sliced mushrooms

2 inches ginger, minced

8 cloves garlic, minced

2-3 Serrano peppers, sliced (optional)

1 bunch green onions, chopped (for garnish)

oil

a big pot

For the sauce:

1 1/2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (if you can’t find any, could probably substitute an equal amount of regular soy sauce and add 1-2 teaspoons of molasses)

1 1/2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce (somewhat optional, gives it a more savory flavor.  You can leave it out if you don’t have any)

1-2 tablespoons chili paste (the sambal oelek type stuff, sriracha would probably work as well)

2-3 teaspoons cumin, ground

2-3 teaspoons coriander, ground

1 teaspoon mustard seed, ground

1 1/2 inch cinnamon stick, ground

3-5 green cardamom pods (NOT THE BLACK ONES, you use 3 of those and that will be all you can taste), ground

1 teaspoon turmeric, ground

OR

instead of all the dry ground spices, you could just use a couple tablespoons of curry powder if that’s easier to find.

Directions

First thing to do is prep the noodles.  Turn on your sink faucet and set it as hot as you can get it.  Once it’s warmed up, put the noodles in a large bowl and fill with water until they are covered.  After 20 minutes, you can drain them and set them aside.  If you add some oil to them at this point, it will keep them from sticking together as they sit.

Now, take all that stuff for the sauce and whisk it together in a bowl (I hate being fancy saying “whisk it together,” when we all know you can just use a fork. But that is the term. But still, just use a fork) and set it aside.

Now, to start the actual cooking.  Put your pot on the stove (could also use a frying pan if you want, but it wasn’t large enough for me to get everything in it at the end.  If you’re cutting down the ratios, use a large skillet instead and you should be fine. Stuff will cook better as well) on medium high heat, add some oil, and add your chicken.  Stir frequently to keep it from burning until it’s fully cooked (maybe 10 minutes).  Remove the chicken and put it with the noodles.

Now comes the phases bit, although you could very well just do this all at once if you have fewer vegetables.  Add the garlic, ginger, onion, and serrano to the pot with another splash of oil (if needed) and cook for 5-10 minutes on high heat, stirring frequently.  Once softened, I dumped them in with the chicken and noodles.  Repeat with the mushrooms, dumping them in with everything else once they are done, and then add the bell pepper and cabbage (I lost my patience) and the sauce to the pot.  Stir frequently as the spices in the sauce mellow out and the cabbage and bell pepper cook down. Might want to add a splash of water if the sauce is too thick.

Almost done!  Take everything you have removed and put it back in the pot and mix it all up.  Stir frequently until the noodles are coated in the sauce (you will see as you start to mix that some of them come back up white, keep mixing until that doesn’t happen) and cooked through.

Sprinkle with green onions or chopped cilantro and eat!