This week’s recipe is a simple noodle dish from my latest cookbook, Cooking for Wizards, Warriors and Dragons by Isabel Minunni. I bought this at Half-Price Books and was intrigued by the inclusion of dragons in the title, which I thought surely meant that it had something to do with one of the several dragon related fantasy novels I read. And it did, my favorite novel as a teen in fact, Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C Wrede. This book contains a variety of recipes inspired by fantasy novels old and new, and even highlights recipes inspired by all of the (populated) continents of our planet. I really appreciate the representation as most cookbooks inspired by themes would barely cover Asia or the Middle East, and may skip Africa completely. Unfortunately I could not cook the more unusual recipes because they had some hard to find ingredients (of course), so I just started with a simple Asian recipe inspired by RF Kuang’s Poppy War series, which I have not read but it is on my to read list.
[photo of stir fry noodles with vegetables and scramble egg, topped with basil and sesame seeds)
Ingredients Summary – moderately easy to find in a well-stocked grocery, easy to find at an Asian store
- sauces – oyster sauce, soy sauce
- chili flakes
- garlic
- sugar
- glass noodles (I used imitation Canton wheat/egg noodles)
- oil
- veggies – red pepper (I used orange, yellow mini bell peppers) , mushrooms (rehydrated dried Shiitake), carrots, green onion (didn’t have any so I used chopped Napa cabbage and a bit of Chinese basil)
- egg
- sesame seeds
Steps Summary – very easy
Mix sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Boil noodles and drain. Stir fry veggies in a pan for 5 minutes, then add onions and garlic and cook for a minute. Remove from pan, then scramble the egg. Add noodles, sauce and veggies and cook until thickened about 5 minutes. Top with sesame seeds.
Taste Summary – salty and a little spicy
- salty but not very spicy – the oyster and soy sauce is giving the umami salty, savory flavors here. The chili flakes did not provide too much spice so you can always add chili sauce if you want
- texture – I prefer wheat noodles over glass (rice) noodles for stir fry, since it has more chewiness and can last longer in the fridge as leftovers. The napa cabbage provided a little more crunch and prevented it from getting too salty (I didn’t really measure out 4 servings of noodles as mentioned in the book so the sauce made a little more than I expected).
Convenience Summary – super easy, just takes 15 minutes, if you chop veggies while boiling water anyway. Recipe makes 4 servings though I feel like mine was more like 3 servings. I managed to get 2 small meals or a little less than half the recipe, but my mom ate the rest in one go so clearly it has my mom’s approval and she’s rather picky.
Would I make this again? Yes, it was very easy, quite tasty, great for using veggies that are used in stir fry, such as cabbage and broccoli. Maybe next time I’ll use different noodles, like glass noodles or rice noodles or soba or udon, though depending on the noodles, I would eat it right away or keep the sauce separate in the fridge. Perhaps the only thing it was missing was another protein, as 4 servings would really require 2 eggs at minimum. I might dice some firm tofu, or add leftover shredded chicken or some pork. It also really needed the green onion lol.
For all recipe reviews, visit the “food” category on my blog!