Monday, June 25, 2007

Beef Rice Noodles with Snowpeas

I'm still on my quest to get through all my recipe clippings, and I have a way to go yet! I'm falling behind in my posts a little, so stay tuned for Chicken Baked on Sweet Potato Rosti as well as Irish Stew. In the meantime have a go at beef rice noodles with snowpeas when you want a quick and healthy dinner. On a side note, I've always thought stirfries were pretty healthy (minus coconut milk), however just recently my mother's doctor said no. He claimed the food soaked up the oil. I would like to publicly disagree. Surely if the pan is hot enough you don't need much oil and secondly, olive and vegetable oils are unsaturated. Am I right? Hmm, this is the doctor who said walking 9 holes of golf wasn't enough exercise. Anyway, back to the food.


I preferred this meal to the Honey and Sesame Stir-fried Beef I cooked a little while ago. The marinade had a little more depth and using rice noodles meant all flavours mixed in well and the meal was quick to prepare. I definitely under-utilise rice noodles, dump them in some hot water for a bit, throw them in the pan and away you go. Much quicker than waiting for rice to cook.
So here's the recipe, from an edition of Good Living in about 2004. I think a little bit of ginger might give it a great lift too.

Beef rice noodles with snowpeas

Marinade:
2 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp rice wine
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
300g rib eye or sirloin, finely sliced
500g fresh rice noodles
Vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
100g snow peas, sliced lengthwise
200g bean sprouts, rinsed
1 tbsp rice wine or dry sherry
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 spring onions, finely chopped

Combine marinade ingredients and leave beef to marinate for 30 minutes.

Pour hot water ove rthe noodles, gently working them apart with chopstickes. Drain, rinse under cold water, shake dry and rub in a little oil.

Heat a wok (I use a frying pan, even if I had a wok I don't imagine it'd go so well on my electric stove) then add 2 tbsp oil. Add garlic and snowpease, toss well over high heat for 1 min. Add the beef in marinade and toss well until coloured, then tip onto a warm plate.

Add a little extra oil to the pan, and toss the drained noodles and bean sprouts over high heat for 2 mins. Return the beef and snowpeas to the pan, then add the rice wine, soy, oyster sauce and sugar, tossing well. Add a dash of water if dry. Scatter with spring onions and serve.

Serves 4


3 comments:

Tara said...

I'm with you, stir fries are fairly healthy. But as with anything you have to make them right. I don't know how that doctor makes his stir fries, but there isn't a hell of a lot of oil in mine. You stir everything to stop it sticking rather than adding lots of oil, and as you say olive oil isn't all that bad in small quantities. They are an easy way to get more veggies into your meal, and the vegetables aren't cooked to death so all their goodness is still there. I'd be interested to know what he does suggest as a healthy meal..

Ali-K said...

Thanks Tara, as egocentric as it is, it's always nice to have someone agree with you. I'm not sure what he would consider a healthy meal but my thoughts? Everything and anything in moderation when it comes to food, not that I always practice what I preach ;-)

Dallas Home Theater said...

Appreciiate you blogging this