Mango Garlic Noodles

Copyright 2007 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients:
2 ripe mangoes, diced
1 lb. fresh Shanghai-style Chinese noodles
1 cup green cabbage, shredded
3 cloves garlic, julienned
1 T sesame oil
2 T oyster sauce
2 T fish sauce
1 T soy sauce
2 T Mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)
4 T canola oil
salt

Bring pot of water to a boil and add fresh noodles. Salt the water and cook noodles until tender (about six minutes or per packaging instructions). Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

In a small bowl, blend sesame oil, oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce and Mirin. Set aside.

In a large wok or skillet, heat two tablespoon of oil over high heat. Add cabbage with about a teaspoon of salt and stir-fry for a minute until soft. Remove from wok and set aside.

Reheat another two tablespoon of oil in the wok over high heat. Add garlic and quickly brown (don’t burn your garlic or it’ll be bitter), then add noodles and stir-fry, trying to loosen it up in the wok. Add marinade from the small bowl to the noodles and continue to stir fry with the mangoes. (About a minute.) Toss in the cabbage and plate. Garnish with green onions and sesame seeds.

Makes 3 servings.

Serve with a glass of Riesling.

TIP: The success of this dish depends on your skills at high-heat stir frying. Getting the caramelization on your noodles require the sugar from the Mirin to dry out from the high heat. So it helps when you’re able to moderate your wok to ensure it’s not crowded with ingredients or overly filled with liquids. That’s why I recommend cooking the cabbage first by itself because the cabbage gives off some moisture after you salt it. You don’t want all that moisture mixing in when you’re stir-frying your noodles. That’s also why I recommend a high heat. But high heat can cause your wok to dry out and then your noodles will start to stick to the pan. So be sure there’s always enough of oil and your marinade liquid to keep the sizzling action going but not too much that it settles into a soup in your wok. (Like I said, it's a skill.) Because you’ve pre-cooked your noodles and cabbage, they don’t really need that much time in the wok other than to get a nice brown color and to mix them with the mangoes. Everything will happen in fast order so be sure you have everything prepared before you fire up your wok!

THICK LIKE WORMS: I recommend Shanghai-style noodles for this dish because I like the texture with the mangoes. Shanghai noodles are thicker than regular noodles. (They remind me of worms growing up.) You can find freshly made ones in the refrigerated sections of your Asian grocery stores. But if you can’t find them, you can substitute with two packets of frozen or refrigerated Japanese udon noodles, which are also thick but made with rice starch.