a Chinese style stir fry salad with soy noodles, spring onions, green garlic shoots, bok choy and red cabbage...a one dish meal..

I love one pot meals for the convenience and simplicity. We can always make such meals packed with flavors and colors. Yes, we need to chop more vegetables and cook simultaneously on 2-3 burners, but this meal gets ready within 30 minutes. Even when you chop slowly and your hands tremble when peeling piping hot soft boiled eggs. I find such meals a great cook together exercise too. Like the husband peeled the eggs and arranged them on the plate when I was doing the cooking stuff and this meal was ready within 20 minutes for us.

The crinkled noodles are a new product I spotted on the shelves that looked good, nutritionally as well. These are soy noodles and I liked the taste. Since I love soy nuggets in Chinese style stir fries more, I thought of tossing up this quick stir fry salad with them. It was absolutely a well loved meal by the both of us.

I have used spring onions and green garlic shoots in this stir fry salad along with shreds of purple cabbage and chopped bok choy (or pok choy). It is such a wonderful crunchy mix that we ended up wanting for more. Even when it was a super filling meal.

The ingredient list looks long but is not that cumbersome to work with.

ingredients...
(serves 2)
soy noodles ( I used half of a 100 gm packet, it swells up after boiling)
you can use soba noodles or any noodles you wish..

5 baby bok choy slit lengthwise twice and then halved in length (1.5 cups)
1/4th of a red cabbage shredded (about 1.5 cups)
5 stalks of spring onions (base only) slit lengthwise and then chopped into 1.5 inch batons (1 cup)
6-7 stalks of thick green garlic shoots (greens included) slit lengthwise and chopped into 1.5 inch batons (1 cup)

half an inch of cinnamon stick broken
3-4 cloves
5-6 schezuan peppers
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
2-3 petals of star anise
Pound coarsely all these spices together..
you can always replace these spices with a ready five spice powder, use to taste.

broken red chilies 3-4 or to taste
salt to taste
drizzle of soy sauce to taste
1-2 tbsp sesame oil (or use any oil you prefer)

eggs to serve on the side to make it a complete meal as many required.

procedure...

Keep the eggs to boil in a pan on one of the burners. Boil them for 4-5 minutes. Place them under running cold water and peel immediately. Arrange on the serving platter.

At the same time, keep the soy noodles to boil in lightly salted water.

On another burner, heat the oil on high heat and tip in the broken red chilies. Tip in all the chopped vegetables within seconds after that and start tossing them using a fork or tongs. Add minimal salt, the spice powder and drizzle soy sauce while tossing the vegetables up. It takes only about 3-5 minutes on high flame. The vegetables shouldn't get soggy. Take the pan off the heat while you strain the boiled soy noodles.

Strain, rinse and squeeze the soy noodles gently. Add to the stir fry vegetables, return to high heat and toss them all till the flavors mix up with soy noodles.

Serve on the platter lined with soft boiled eggs.

The spices can be adjusted to taste but don't let the vegetables become mushy while you cook them. It makes a wonderfully flavorful meal, rich in textures and deeply satisfying.

Do let me know when you try this stir fry salad. A salad for meal that it is....