Rating 8/10
For the first time, I got to cook a recipe that fit within two of my cooking projects. As a Hakka recipe, this meal of Singapore-Style Hakka Noodles with Summer Veggies fits into my International cuisines project. As a recipe from a meal kit, it fits into my meal kit hacks. Plus, it’s a vegan recipe, which I’m guessing will soon become a project of its own.
What’s even better, is that my daughter liked it! It’s one of the very few vegan meals she’s said she’d like me to make again.
It was, I must admit, more complicated than most of the stir fries that she eats so often now – and it used more pans – but hey, it’s all about the results. I tasted the noodles, and they were delicious – very much like the garlic noodles that you get at a variety of Asian restaurants. I’m definitely going to make them again just for me 🙂
Talking about noodles, I waited to make this dish until I could send my husband to the Asian supermarket to pick up some Hakka noodles. We usually shop at 88 Manor Market, where they have a zillion varieties of noodles, maybe more. But I also wanted him to pick up some pork belly for a different recipe and I wasn’t sure they’d have it there – so I asked him to go to Foodnet instead. I hadn’t been there before, however, and apparently Foodnet is the one noodle-free Chinese supermarket. Go figure. They did have a 4 lb box of Imperial Taste Dried Noodle, which turned out to be vermicelli-like noodles. According to the box, they had a “chewing taste!,” and they did prove to be nicely chewy. They worked great in this recipe even if they weren’t what Hakkas in Singapore would use.
I spent $10 to make this recipe, which resulted in two large bowls. That’s half of what the HelloFresh meal kit would cost (though this kit is from England, so you can’t get it anyway :-). As usual, I count the total cost of the ingredients I had to buy to make this meal, but not of the ones I already had at home.
| Plated Ingredients | My Ingredients | Cost |
| 200 g Hakka Noodles | 4 lbs Taiwanese dried noodle | $5 |
| 10 g chives | 1 pckg fresh chives (used less) | $2.3 |
| 30 g ginger | 1 lb ginger | $2.3 |
| 1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce | 2 garlic cloves + 1/8 tsp chili sauce | pantry |
| 1 Tbsp soy sauce | 1 Tbsp soy sauce | pantry |
| 1 tsp mild curry powder | 1 tsp mild curry powder | pantry |
| 113 g julienned carrots | 1 carrot | $0.2 |
| 1 zucchini | 1/2 zucchini | pantry |
| 113 g Green Peas | 1 cup grozen green peas | pantry |
| 200 g extra-firm tofu | 8 oz extra-firm tofu | pantry |
I will link to my version of the recipe once I post it on my International Cuisines site.