滑牛肉面

Having taken Friday off of work to.... study..... I ended up doing my market shopping, and going out for lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. But yesterday to everyone's surprise, including mine, I sat down and have almost completed my presentation for Barossa Tourism (The TG and I will have to go up in a couple of weekends and take some extra photos, but I figure he'll feel at home!)

At the markets I had bought the ingredients for this months' Daring Cooks recipe - give or take two key ingredients, so my Saturday night dinner plans were washed away. However I did have a packet of sheet noodles.


So I decided to reward myself for finally doing the damn presentation by cooking myself my famous HuaNiuRouMian (滑牛肉面), or Slippery Beef Noodles. I call them this because there's beef in it and they're slippery.

1. In a hot wok cook about 3 tablespoons of peanut oil for a couple of minutes and allow to cool. Once cool mix half of this with a teaspoon of corn flour, a teaspoon of soy sauce and a splash of water. Marinate about 200g of beef strips in this for at least half an hour.
2. Cut strips of noodles off the sheet - nice thick noodles. Cover in a bowl with boiling water, pulling the noodles apart with chopsticks. They will only take a couple of minutes to cook. Drain them and set aside.
3. Heat the left over oil in the wok again and fry off half a small, diced onion, garlic, ginger and half a teaspoon of hot pepper sauce. When this is coloured, add the beef with all of the marinade and cook until almost done through.
4. Then add a couple of bunches of Chinese spinach. This is often grown hydroponically so needs a good wash to get rid of any sand. I sometimes don't do this properly and the whole dish ends up a bit crunchy. Once the spinach is wilted remove everything from the wok.
5. Pop the noodles into the wok and season them with a mixture of half a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of light soy and a teaspoon and a half of dark thick soy. Add a small splash of fish sauce for seasoning.
6. Return the beef and vegetables and heat through
7. Consume immediately!