Noodles & Minced Meat - My Kind of Fast Food

Several years ago I was introduced to Ginger-Scallion Sauce, and since then, it has become my go-to sauce whenever I want something tasty to eat, fast! There is essentially no 'cooking' involved in making the sauce, you simply grate, and or finely mince the ingredients and pour hot oil over everything. Easy, right? The best part is that this sauce goes well with many things - noodles (all types, including pasta), rice, boiled ground provisions, spread over thick crusty toast or even tossed with a garden salad. You can also serve it with seafood and poultry or over grilled skirt or flank steak. Grilled pork chops? Yeah, that too!

My friend Nadini introduced me these no-cook chowmein noodles and they come in 2 varieties - fine and broad; in this dish I used the broad noodles. Like the sauce, there is no real cooking involved. Just as you would pour boiling water over rice noodles to rehydrate them, the same process is involved here. You see what I am saying about fast food here?

Most of the time I never include meat in my ginger-scallion noodles, I eat it just so, and too much of it. LOL. However, the other day I had some cooked minced beef left over from another dish I made... I think you see and know where I am going with this. I simply heated a wok (or use any deep pan you have), drizzled in some oil, reheated the cooked mince, tossed in the ginger-scallion sauce and noodles, toss, toss, toss until everything was heated through and mixed together. Done!

SAUCE

• 4 - 6 scallions sliced thinly (white/purple and green parts)
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh root ginger
• 2 teaspoons grated garlic
• Finely minced hot pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon rice wine, apple cider or white vinegar
• Salt to taste
• 6 - 8 tablespoons vegetable/canola oil
• 3/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil (optional)

To make the sauce

1. Mix together the scallions, ginger, garlic, pepper, vinegar and salt in a deep, heatproof bowl.
2. Heat the oil until almost smoking hot and pour over the ingredients in the bowl and mix well with a fork.
3. Add sesame oil if using and mix in to the sauce. Set aside for 10 minutes so that the flavours can meld.

NOODLES

Use any noodles of your choosing and cook/prepare according to package instructions.

ASSEMBLY

Toss the noodles with the sauce (depending on how much noodles you cooked, you may not need to use all of the sauce. Store the remainder in the refrigerator in an airtight container. Will last for a week).

ADDITIONS

Ground meat (beef, pork, chicken, turkey) and shrimp can be added to the noodle mixture as well as vegetables. Here's what's to do: stir-fry the meat or shrimp and vegetables, then add noodles and sauce and toss to mix.