Technical Difficulties

In case you didn’t know, I’m new to this blog thing. How I was I supposed to know I just can’t borrow images from random sites? I mean, why should say, Coca Cola, care that I link to an image of a coke can I found on their site? No one in their right mind would assume I took the picture. And it’s free advertising for them. Well, my IT department husband lectured me about my bad netiquette after I posted. My bad. He'll be happy to know I replaced the questionable images with my own. Lesson learned.

Now on to the real reason we’re here.

Today is usually pizza night, but I had a craving for something else. Something with noodles, pork and garlic. Something like this:

Egg noodles with pork and asparagus:

• 2 tsp oyster sauce
• 4 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp yellow bean sauce
• 1 tbs tapioca flour
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• ¾ lbs pork tenderloin, thin slices or strips
• 2-3 cups asparagus, diagonally sliced
• ½ lbs fresh egg noodles (also called wonton noodles)
  

Before you begin, set a pot of water to boil for the egg noodles. These only take about 3 minutes, but you’ll want to wait until you're about done with the stir-fry before cooking them.

In a bowl, whisk together the oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, yellow bean sauce, flour and ¾ cup of water. If you use regular soy sauce, you’ll probably want to cut the amount to 2 tsp, otherwise it will be too salty with the bean sauce.

In a hot wok set on high heat, add about 1-2 tbs oil, and fry the garlic for about 15-30 seconds (don’t let it burn). Add the asparagus and pork . Stir fry until almost done, about 3-4 minutes. Add the sauce mix and cook for about 1 minute. The stir fry will begin to thicken quickly. At this point you have two options: 1) add the cooked noodles and mix everything, turning off the heat after about 30 seconds, or 2) turn off the heat and serve the stir fry on top of the cooked noodles.

If you taste the stir-fry alone, it will be a little salty, but served with the noodles the saltiness from the soy sauce and yellow beans mellows out. At our house a dish like this is served with sambal oelek or fresh chillies in rice vinegar, sugar, and fish sauce on the side (like you’d see at a Thai or Vietnamese noodle house). Everyone adjusts the seasonings to their liking.