New Ways to Cook Instant Noodles

Instant Noodles in Chow Mein, Italian Risotto, Thai Curry-style

Here are three new, mouthwatering ways to cook plain instant noodles. Read on for step-by-step instructions to cook them in Chinese Chow Mein, Italian Risotto, and Thai Curry-style. While the first is a modified but tasty version of Chinese Chow Mein noodles, the Italian and Thai-style ones are original Pat-a-Cake recipes.

The advantage of using instant or 2-minute noodles is that they cook fast; regular noodles would have taken three or four times as much time to cook. The down side is that taste-wise they’re not all that great. Well, there’ll be no more boring instant noodles for you once you’ve discovered these far more delicious versions. So check them out and go ahead and make them in your own kitchen.

Ingredients

Chinese Chow Mein-style Instant Noodles

1 packet instant noodles (any variety) – around 70 g

2 medium-size onions

2 medium-size tomatoes

1 medium-size carrot

1 green capsicum

4 or 5 spring onions

4 tbsp of sweet corn

1 egg

6 medium-size cloves of garlic

2 ½ tbsp roughly chopped ginger

1 pod of star anise

1 ½ tbsp red chilli sauce

1 ¼ tbsp dark soya sauce

1 ½ tbsp tomato sauce

½ tsp pepper powder

1 tsp sugar

Salt to taste

3 to 4 tbsp oil

Italian Risotto-style Instant Noodles

1 packet instant noodles (cheese flavoured) – around 70 g

(along with the seasoning sachet)

Approx. 70g button mushrooms

½ cup boiled green peas

1 medium-size onion

1 green chilli

4 cloves of garlic

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp white pepper powder

1 ¼ cup water

½ cup milk

2 tsp corn flour

3-4 tbsp (around ¼ cup) chopped cheddar cheese

A few mint leaves

2 tbsp oil

Thai Curry-style Instant Noodles

1 packet instant noodles (any flavour) – around 70 g

1 medium size onion, finely chopped

½ cup boiled and cubed potatoes

1 medium-size carrot

⅓ cup medium-size pieces tomato

⅓ cup medium-size pieces capsicum

⅓ cup 1-inch long pieces of green beans

1 ½ tbsp crushed or grated ginger

1 ½ tbsp crushed or finely chopped garlic

1 ½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

1 tsp dhania-jeera (coriander-cumin) powder

2 x 25 g sachets of dried coconut milk powder+1cup water

(Or 1 cup freshly extracted coconut milk)

1 small bundle of lemon grass

Zest of ½ sour lime

2 tsp sour lime juice

1 ½ tsp sugar

¾ tsp salt

2 tbsp oil

Procedure

Chinese Chow Mein-style Instant Noodles

1. Boil the noodles in plenty of water with a little salt and oil till they’re al dente, that is, till they’re slightly undercooked and have a bite to them. Drain the water from them and refresh them with cold water. Drizzle them with oil to keep them from sticking.
2. Slice the onions, tomatoes, and capsicum lengthwise. Cut the carrot into juliennes. Cut the greens of the spring onions into 1-inch pieces.
3. Roughly chop the ginger and garlic.
4. Mix the red chilli sauce, dark soya sauce, tomato sauce, and pepper powder to make a sauce mix.
5. Heat the oil in a wok. Keep the heat high. Sauté the star anise in it for around a minute.
6. Then throw in the garlic and onions. Sauté these for a minute. Then one by one, add in the carrot, capsicum, tomato, sweet corn, and ginger, stir-frying on high heat for a minute after adding each vegetable.
7. Push the vegetables to one side. Add a tsp of oil to the wok, scramble the egg directly in the wok and then mix it in with the other ingredients.
8. Add the salt, a sprinkling of pepper powder, and the sugar. Stir everything and then add the sauce mix and the noodles. Toss the contents taking care to see that the noodles remain intact.
9. Add the greens of the spring onions, quickly toss everything again and turn off the heat.

Serve the delicious Chinese Chow Mein-style noodles steaming hot.

Italian Risotto-style Instant Noodles

1. Crush the noodles till they’re a little larger than long-grain rice.
2. Chop the onion into small pieces. Chop the green chilly finely and the garlic roughly.
3. Wash the button mushrooms at least twice in plenty of water and then pat them dry. You could peel off the outer layer of each mushroom if you want them to be absolutely white before you use them. But this step is optional. Chop the mushrooms into small pieces.
4. Heat the oil in a wok, setting the heat to medium. Transfer the chopped chilli pieces to the oil, and then the chopped onion.
5. When the onion just begins to brown, throw in the garlic, stir it for a few seconds and then add the mushrooms. The mushrooms will release a little water at first, but this will soon dry up.
6. Add in the salt and white pepper powder. We’re not using black pepper because we want to retain the creamy white colour of the dish. Give everything a quick stir and transfer the mushroom mix to a bowl.
7. To the same wok in which you cooked the mushrooms, add 1 ¼ cups of water and bring it to a boil with the heat set to medium.
8. While the water is heating up, make a slurry with the cornflour and around 3 tbsp of water. (In place of corn flour, you could use either all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour.)
9. To the boiling water add the crushed noodles along with the green peas. Cook these for around 2 minutes, and then add the seasoning powder.
10. Next, add the cornflour slurry, the milk, and the chopped cheddar cheese. Stir everything well and cook the mix till the cheese melts.
11. Finally, stir in the cooked mushrooms. At this stage you could adjust the taste for salt.
12. Garnish the flavourful Italian risotto-style instant noodles with mint leaves.

Thai Curry-style Instant Noodles

We’ll make some smart substitutions in this recipe. Instead of lemon grass roots, we’ll use a small bundle of lemon grass. And instead of kafir lime leaves that are used in Thai curries, we’ll use the water into which lemon zest has been soaked for around ½ an hour. You could use a potato peeler for scraping the zest of half a sour lime and then soak it in around 3 – 4 tbsp of water.

And to make the Thai Curry Paste, add the dhania-jeera or coriander-cumin powder, and the Kashmiri chilli powder to the crushed ginger and garlic. Mix all of this well.

1. Cook the noodles till they’re al dente.
2. Reconstitute the coconut milk by mixing the coconut milk powder into 1 cup of water. (You could also extract 1 cup of coconut milk from freshly grated coconut instead.)
3. In a wok, heat the oil and add the chopped onion to it. Fry it till it starts browning.
4. Mix in the water in which the sour lime zest was soaked into the curry paste and then add this to the onions. Rinse the empty bowl with a little water and add the rinsings to the wok as well.
5. Now add in around half of the coconut milk and then throw in the chopped carrots, and the beans. Reduce the flame and cook these for around 2-3 minutes and then add in the chopped capsicum and the bundle of lemon grass. (Remove this bundle before serving the noodles.)
6. Let everything cook for another couple of minutes and then throw in the chopped tomatoes and potatoes.
7. It’s now time to add the rest of the coconut milk. Add a little water too if you need to. Give everything a stir, mix in the salt and sugar, and let the curry slowly come to a boil.
8. Add in the lime juice, check if the vegetables have cooked, and then taste the curry. Add more lime juice, salt, or sugar, if needed.

You could serve this dish in two ways. You could add one serving of noodles into a bowl and then ladle a little of the curry into it by the side of the noodles. Or else, you could add all the noodles to the curry, mix everything carefully, and serve the tasty Thai Curry-style noodles piping hot.

Enjoy!