Hard-seared cabbage, carrot and beans tossed with garlic and white pepper through light samai noodles — dry, smoky and audibly crunchy.
Ingredients
From the TrooFoodz pantry
- Sprouted Little Millet Noodles 1 pack (200 g)
- Sprouted Barnyard Millet Noodles 1 pack
Fresh
- Garlic, roughly chopped 6 cloves
- Cabbage, shredded 2 cups
- Carrot, julienned 1 large
- French beans, sliced on the diagonal 12
- Capsicum, thinly sliced 1
- Spring onions, whites and greens separated 4
- Light soy sauce 2 tbsp
- Rice vinegar 1 tbsp
- White pepper, freshly ground ½ tsp
- Groundnut oil 2 tbsp
- Salt to taste
Method
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Prep everything first
Cut all the vegetables to a similar thickness and line them up beside the stove. Once the pan is hot there is no time to chop.
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Undercook the noodles
Boil the Sprouted Little Millet Noodles for ninety seconds — thirty short of the pack time — then drain, rinse cold and toss with a teaspoon of oil.
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Get the pan smoking
Heat a wok or heavy pan until a drop of water skitters and vanishes. Add the oil and swirl it up the sides.
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Sear the hard veg
Throw in the garlic and spring onion whites for ten seconds, then the beans and carrot. Keep everything moving for a minute so it chars at the edges but stays raw at the centre.
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Add the soft veg
Tip in the cabbage and capsicum and stir-fry a further minute. The cabbage should wilt at the edges and still snap when you bite it.
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Toss the noodles in
Add the noodles, then the soy and vinegar down the hot side of the wok so they hiss and caramelise before they hit the food.
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Season and out
Grind over the white pepper, taste for salt, fold in the spring onion greens and serve straight from the pan while the crunch is intact.
Why this works
Little millet noodles are the lightest in the range and go soft quickly, so pulling them thirty seconds early leaves room for the finishing toss in the wok. Cooking the vegetables in two waves means the beans get the heat they need while the cabbage keeps its bite. Pouring the soy down the pan wall rather than onto the noodles evaporates the water and concentrates the flavour instead of steaming everything.
Make it your own
- Sprouted Little Millet Noodles → Sprouted Foxtail Millet Noodles Firmer strand that stays separate under high heat.
- White pepper → Black pepper Less musty, more direct heat.
- Rice vinegar → Lime juice Fresher and sharper; add off the heat.
- Groundnut oil → Rice bran oil Similarly neutral with a high smoke point.
- Or use → barnyard millet noodles A coarser, more substantial strand that stands up to high-heat tossing.
