Asian Inspirations

Discover the authentic in Asian cuisine food

Noodles

Somen with Beef Skewers and a Warm Broth

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To Prep
Place the beef cubes and green onion pieces neatly onto 4 bamboo skewers alternating each as you go. Combine together the marinade mix of soy, mirin and sugar, and then coat the skewers well.

To Cook
Bring to a boil the dashi, soy, mirin, salt and sugar, then turn down and simmer for 3 mins. Remove from the heat and set aside.
In a pre-heated grill pan cook the skewers with olive oil quickly until medium rare. Place a neat portion of the noodles into each serving bowl and top with a beef skewer. Pour the hot broth over each skewer and finish with the sliced spring onions.
Your Somen with Beef Skewers is ready! Be sure to savour it with the warm broth!

Indonesian Stir-Fry Seafood Noodle (Bakmi Goreng)

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To Cook
Place noodles in a deep bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to stand for 2-3 mins until separated. Drain and set aside.
Heat 1 tbsp oil, pour in eggs to make an omelette. When cooked, slice and set aside.
In a bowl, mix together chilli sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil.
Heat remaining oil. Add garlic, stir-fry until fragrant. Add prawns and squid. Cook for 2 mins, or until prawns turn pink and squid curled up.
Add the bowl of mixed sauces, and then the mushrooms, cook for 2 mins.
Add the noodles and toss to coat the noodles in the sauce, ensuring all ingredients are well coated. Season with salt and pepper.
Garnish with sliced omelette and spring onion. Serve.

Tips
For any successful stir-fry, have all the ingredients prepared and sauces on ‘stand-by’. As food is cooked on high heat, the order of adding the raw ingredients into the hot pan is important so as not to undercook, nor overcook them.
For a vegetarian option, replace seafood with a variety of fresh mushrooms like oyster, brown, white, chanterelle and enoki to give both flavour and texture to the dish.
Chinese families often fry a bowl of finely chopped garlic in a cup of oil, until golden brown. Store in a jar, and drizzle over food as a finishing touch to dishes as you would with extra virgin olive oil. Or use this fragrant oil to fry your eggs.

Duck and Ramen Sambai-zu

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To Cook
Boil together the dashi, vinegar, soy and mirin, cool and set aside.
Cook the ramen noodles as per instruction on the packet, cool and hold.
Combine together the noodles with the sliced duck, capsicum, eggs, sliced ginger and the spring onion. Add half of the dressing, toss well together and taste. You can add more if required.
Your Duck and Ramen Sanbai-zu Salad is ready! Enjoy this three flavour dressing salad.

Chilled Somen Noodles

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To Cook
Cook somen according to packet instructions. Drain, then refresh under cold running water. Set aside in fridge.
Heat the oil in a pan and add the beaten eggs. Cook until just firm, then remove from pan and place on a cutting board. Cool then cut into fine ribbons.
To prepare the dipping broth, combine the dashi broth, soy sauce and mirin. Pour broth into serving bowls (one for each person). Put broth in fridge to chill. Place Hakubaku wasabi sauce in small condiment bowl/s and chill in fridge.
Place Somen noodles on a large communal platter and top with ice cubes to keep chilled. Arrange condiments, (spring onion, omelette ribbons, shredded Nori and mint), on a serving platter. Each person has a bowl of dipping broth, wasabi sauce and chopsticks. The condiments are selected by each diner and dipped in wasabi (if desired) then placed in the dipping broth.
Your chilled somen noodles with dipping sauces and selected accompaniments dish is ready!
Then the noodles are dipped in the broth, slurp it up and enjoy.

Thai Glass Noodle Salad (Yum Woon Sen)

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To Prep
Soak bean vermicelli in warm water for about 5 mins or until softened. Drain and roughly chop.

To Cook
Heat oil in the pan/wok and cook the chicken mince. Add a dash of fish sauce and stir fry until the chicken is cooked. Add bean vermicelli and stir to mix well. Remove from heat.
Add fish sauce, lime juice, tomato wedges and sugar to the chicken mixture and stir well. Add the mint, garlic, lemongrass, chilli and minced coriander; stir well.
Line a serving plate with lettuce and then spoon the chicken mixture over the leaves. Garnish with shallot and coriander leaves.

Korean Cold Noodle Soup (Mul Naeng Myun)

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To Cook
Fill a big stock pot with cold water and add beef and bring to a boil. Skim off impurities and add garlic, green onions and 1 tbsp salt. Reduce heat and simmer for about 2 hrs. Take out meat, leave to chill and cut into thin slices. Set aside.
Cool the stock to room temperature (should have about 12 cups of stock). Add in 2 tbsp salt, ½ tbsp soy sauce, 5 tbsp sugar and 3 tbsp soup mix from nang myun packet. Place in the fridge or in the freezer so that it is lightly frozen (similar to light slushie).
For the moo pickle (Korean radish pickle) – Add ⅓ tbsp salt to moo (Korean radish) in a small bowl. Leave for about 15 mins. Drain out water and add the rest of the ingredients and leave to pickle for at least 1 hr or overnight.
Cook nang myun (noodles) in rapidly boiling pot of water. Cook noodles for about 3 mins or until the noodles are cooked but still al dente.
Drain noodles and wash noodle thoroughly with cold water until the noodles are cold and get rid of excess starch. Drain noodles well.
Place 1 serving of cold nang myun (noodles) in a bowl. Ladle 2-3 cup cold soup over the noodles. Top with 5-6 cucumber slices, 2 tbsp moo (radish) pickle, ½ egg, 2-3 beef slices and 3-4 Korean pear slices. Repeat with other servings.
Serve nang myun (cold noodles) with vinegar and mustard on the side for individual taste.
Add more salt and sugar to the cold stock if needed. Moo (radish pickle) can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Mamak Mee Goreng

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To Make Fritters
Mix all the ingredients for fritter to form batter. Use a tablespoon to scoop a big dollop into hot oil and deep fried till golden brown. Cooled and cut into chunks.

To Make Chilli Paste
Remove seeds from dried chillies, soak in hot water for 15 mins and blend with 2 tbsp of water.
Heat up frying pan with 3 tbsp of oil and sauté the chilli paste over low heat till fragrant and oil is separated. Add in brown sugar, tamarind juice, salt and cook for 1 min. Set aside to cool.

To Cook Mamak Mee Goreng
Put 2 tbsp oil into frying pan and sauté the chopped onion and garlic.
Toss in fried tofu slices and boiled potatoes and fry for 1 min.
Add in 1 tbsp fried chilli paste (add 2 tbsp if you prefer spicier), squid and fry for 1 min.
Toss in the choy sum and squid, stir and put in the fritters and tomato wedges. Cook for 1 min.
Toss in the noodles then the sauce ingredients and stir for further 30 secs or till well mixed.
Push noodles to one side, pour beaten eggs, stir it till half cooked.
Bring noodles together with the eggs and fry till cooked.
Toss in bean sprouts and chillies, cook for 1 min and plate up.
Garnish with cucumber julienne, sliced green chillies and lime wedges. Serve.

Penang Prawn Noodle (Hokkien Mee)

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For prawn Soup Stock
Place 600g pork rib in a pot. Separately boil some hot water. Once boiled, scoop hot water over pork ribs, lightly blanch it and drain water out.
Add all stock ingredients including 600g blanched pork rib. Bring to full boil and then turn over to low heat and leave to slow boil for 1½ hrs. Season with rock sugar and salt.
Strain stock, retain soup. Add in the sambal chili paste – sambal recipe below (2½ tbsp or adjust to your preference).

For Sambal Chilli Paste
Blend (Part A) till it becomes a paste.
Heat oil in wok, add in blended (Part A), sauté for 10 mins.
Add in chopped dried shrimps from (Part B), continue to cook for 5 mins.
Add in seasonings in Part B and dish out set aside.

For Other Ingredients
200g fresh shrimps, stir fry in the same wok after dishing out the sambal paste, season with salt, set aside.
200g chicken breast, blanch in the prawn soup stock for 15 mins, remove and sliced or shredded then set aside.
Water spinach (kangkung), blanch in hot water. Drain and set aside.
Bean sprouts, blanch in hot water, drain and set aside.
Yellow noodles and rice vermicelli, blanch in hot water, drained and set aside.

To Serve
Place noodles into serving bowl, top up with prawn soup stock and garnish with bean sprouts, water spinach (kangkung), hard-boiled eggs, chili shrimps, pork slices, sliced fish cakes, fried pork lards and fried shallots.

Soba Salad with Soy Sauce

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To Cook
Cook soba noodles in boiling water according to packet instructions or until tender. Remove and soak in iced water. Drain and place into a serving bowl.
Arrange cucumber and carrots on soba noodles. Chill until cold.
Add seasoning mix just before serving and mix well. Garnish with sesame seeds.

Stir-Fried Beef and Udon Noodles

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To Prep
Combine beef strips with Marinade ingredients in a small bowl and marinate up to 2 hrs.

To Cook
Heat a wok over high heat, add the oil and garlic. Stir fry the beef strips until browned. Set aside.
Drain the udon noodles and add to the wok along with the black sesame seeds, stir fry for 2 mins.
Return the beef to the wok for 3 mins.
Serve your Stir-Fried Beef Udon Noodles hot, garnished with a wedge of lime, spring onion, chilli and sesame seeds.

Grilled Scallops with Daikon and Cold Noodle Sauce

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To Cook
Carefully remove the scallops from the half shells. Set the scallops aside and boil the shells for 1 min. Dry and lay out onto 4 plates.
To make the sauce, bring to a boil the dashi, mirin, soy and chopped shrimp, turn down and simmer for 6 mins. Strain and cool.
Place a small amount of the somen noodles onto each scallop shell and top with a little of the finely cut daikon.
Place the butter into a pre-heated grill pan. When it starts to foam, add the scallops and cook each side for 1 min.
Place a scallop onto each shell, spoon some of the cold sauce over each and finish with a coriander sprig.

Sticky Pork and Vegetable Stir-Fry with Udon Noodles

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To Prep
The pork needs to be marinated for at least 3 hrs (or even overnight). In a large bowl, combine the honey, soy sauce, five-spice, and sugar, chilli, garlic and sesame oil. Add the pork strips (turning to coat), then cover bowl and place in fridge for desired length of time.

To Cook
Cook noodles according to packet instructions. Drain and cover to keep warm. Set aside.
Heat the peanut oil in a wok. Stir-fry the marinated pork (in small batches) until browned. Return the pork to the wok along with the carrot. Stir-fry until pork is cooked. Add the snow peas, lime leaves and orange juice and stir-fry until snow peas are tender-crisp. Remove from heat, then add spring onion and peanuts, gently tossing to combine.
Divide the noodles between 4 serving plates. Ladle the stir-fry over the top. Serve hot.