These Stir-Fried Cellophane Noodles with Enoki Mushrooms gave me the opportunity to cook with two new (to me) ingredients, cellophane noodles and enoki mushrooms. Yes, it's time to tackle another dish from Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge by Grace Young for Wok Wednesdays!
By the way, this stir-fry was delicious!! And easy peasy!
Cellophane noodles are made from mung bean flour, and are pretty flavorless on their own. They are dried, and look similar to rice sticks. The ones I found in my local grocery store came in a sealed plastic package, and were labeled Saifun. In the book, Grace referred to them as fun see, glass noodles, bean thread noodles, and green bean thread. Fortunately, they looked exactly like the photo in the book, and the subtitle was "bean threads."
Determined to not have to make a special trip to the Asian market on a holiday weekend, I headed over to the mushroom section to buy some shiitakes mushrooms as a substitute. Bam! They had enoki mushrooms!! In Ralph's! Happy dance time!
For those of you, like me until now, have no idea what an enoki mushroom looks like, here is a photo:
Kind of cute, right? They come all kind of clumped together. You need to cut the ends off where they are attached, and give them a good wash and dry. While I'm sometimes ambivalent about mushrooms (love the flavor, hate the texture), these were perfect. They blended in with the noodles, and weren't rubbery at all!
We actually had this dish with grilled steaks (sorry Grace, sheepish grin), and the flavors of the garlic, chiles, soy, and sesame really complimented the steaks! Mr. Kitchen actually loved this and didn't miss his requisite baked potato!
This dish is super easy. The ingredients include the noodles, mushrooms, chicken broth, soy sauce, garlic, red pepper flakes, julienned carrots, julienned snow peas, salt, and sesame oil, along with peanut oil for stir frying.
First, you soak the noodles in warm water for about 20 minutes and then drain them and cut them into about 6 inch pieces so they don't form a large clump in your wok. Next, you cut the roots off of the mushrooms and separate them. You briefly sear the garlic and red pepper flakes, add the carrots and mushrooms, then the noodles, then the broth and soy sauce. Toss in the snow peas and cover for a bit. Sprinkle with salt and sesame oil. Voila! Amazingness.
To get the exact measurements and timing, check out page 280 of the book.
What a striking looking stir-fry; your photos are amazingness! I can't wait to make this myself - especially after seeing this! Saturday will be the soonest if I'm lucky.
ReplyDeleteAwww Cathy =). I really loved this one! Thanks so much for the sweet words.
DeleteLovely write up. Looking forward to tomorrow... thank you for your time and effort, I really enjoy your blog.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see yours Audrey!
DeleteFantastic job, Karen! and what joy to find enoki at Ralph's! I don t think the store I shopped when we lived in LA would carry those.... worthy of a happy happy dance indeed!
ReplyDeletelove the table cloth underneath your bowl....
I know you can relate to happy dances Sally =) P.S. The table cloth is from Target!
DeleteHA! Target, or as Phil and I like to call it "Le Target" (with a heavy French accent) - we try to make it sound as fancy as possible..... ;-)
DeleteKaren, Great post and photos! How smart to serve this with steak!
ReplyDeleteThanks Grace! Glad you approve =)
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