Indian Vegetarian Chow Mein

Way back, when we were in Malaysia for some years, though we thoroughly enjoyed the food there, nostalgia sometimes dictated a meal of Indian Chinese.

My first taste of Chinese was in Hyderabad, way back in the Seventies. I recall some truly yummy Sweet and Sour.

Later, in Delhi, we had some delicious dishes at the Golden Dragon. 

So here's my recipe for Indian style Chinese noodles or Chow-Mein.

Ingredients

One packet Ching's Secret Hakka Veg Noodles.

About one cup each of vegetables like french beans and carrots, thinly sliced.

A couple of cloves of garlic and a small piece of fresh ginger, also thinly sliced.
Some dried red chillies (optional)

4 Tbsp Oil (or less!)
Salt to taste

Method

Boil 8 -10 cups of water. Drop in the noodles and boil them for only 2 minutes.
The noodles should be al dente (slightly "kachcha").
Drain the noodles and run cold water over them in the strainer.
Keep them aside to cool and rub in 1 teaspoon of oil to prevent sticking.

Heat oil on a high flame. Add the chillies.

Add the vegetables and stir-fry for a couple of minutes.

Take this out and add some more oil and lightly fry the noodles.
Combine them with the veggies and a dash of soy sauce and vinegar or be adventurous like me and use Chinese cooking wine and oyster sauce.

Add salt if you must.

A How To from YouTube:

Serve with Chilli Chicken (Featured in tomorrow's blog post!)

Ching's Secret and Indian Chinese recipes

No Indian from India can ever forget the taste of Indian Chinese. From our Chow Mein to Gobi Manchurian, we crave each greasy bite of this "caravan" food. This was a term used in the early 2000s to describe food from Hawker vans - this was mostly Indian Chinese.

In Delhi - NCR, caravans with mostly Nepali chefs on board, sprouted overnight in the mid 2000s and now we are all addicted to this idea of Chinese cuisine. It is, thus, a shock for Indians who venture out of their land to discover the so called authentic Chinese food - sometimes it enchants but, mostly, it horrified the Indian of those days who was still loathe to be adventurous.

Luckily, such Indians managed to keep from starving when abroad thanks to the compassionate efforts of Maggi and its noodles 

and most of all, to Ching's Secret.

One of these days I shall post more about a few of my family's favourite Indian Chinese dishes. But in the meantime just a short word to say that I made Indian vegetarian Chow Mein with Chilli Chicken (the latter using Ching's Paneer Chilli) and I will never forget the way my husband went at it. My son was gallivanting around town at that time and so I was terrified that none would be left for him.

Luckily, my husband's stomach eventually told him to take a break and some little survived for my son. So the next day I made the Chilli Chicken when he was around. Again there was danger as my husband came home before my son sat down to his meal. My peaceful husband who is anything but a glutton again started behaving in a most unusual way and I could only barely manage to stave him off with a small plate of the chilli chicken.

All this is just to warn Indian wives and mothers all over the world to keep their rolling pins handy when they make Indian Chinese as it seems to bring out the beast in our men.