Chilli Garlic Mushrooms

Decided to try something new for this months AWED - Chinese hosted by DK of Culinary Bazaar. This is my favorite event featuring new cuisine every month giving me an oppurtunity to explore new recipes.
Coming to Chinese cuisine I have never attempted anything apart from the regular fried rice and Veggie noodles.Though I cook mushroom atleast twice a week , its always in the form of some curry, or pulao. Thought why not give mushrooms a try with some nice and spicy Chinese recipe .With that in mind, started digging my recipe collections and found this small scribbling in a corner of a page, which had whole lot of recipes, waiting to be tried.
I remember noting it down from one of my favorite tamil magazine 'Aval Vikatan'.
This recipe seemed very simple and morever I had all the ingredients except vinegar. Since I dont like the taste of vinegar, replaced it with lime juice. At first I was a little hesistant to add tomato ketchup, but believe me a little sweetness enhances the taste.
I also tried the same recipe with cauliflower and also with chicken, both turned out great, will post them later this month.

Here you go with the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 pack white button mushrooms, cut into quarters
1 medium onion sliced
1 medium green bell pepper sliced
3 medium garlic chopped
a very small piece of ginger chopped
1 tsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp chili powder
3 tblsp light soy sauce
1 tblsp corn powder dissolved in 3 tblsp water
1 tblsp lime juice
1/2 cup spring onion chopped

Method:
Cut mushrooms into halves.
Cut capsicums into halves, remove the seeds and cut into thin strips
Drain and keep aside.

In a pan add 2 tblsp of olive oil
Add the onion ,garlic and ginger and fry till translucent
Add capsicums and mushrooms. Add salt.
Stir fry till vegetables are tender crisp.
Add chili powder tomato ketchup and ¼ cup water. Simmer till almost dry
Add soy sauce and Lime juice. Mix corn flour with water and add.
Bring to a boil, simmer for 1 minute.
Sprinkle with spring onion ,give it a toss and switch off the stove.
Serve hot with roti's , noodles or fried rice



Note:
We can also add chopped green chillies along with garlic, instead of chili powder and vinegar instead of lime/lemon juice.

Veggie Noodles - Chinese style

Whenever I have very short time in my hands for preparing lunch, I will always opt for Noodles. What better way to add tons of vegetables and flavour to your meals than Noodles.Ofcourse you can make fried rice , but Noodles cooks much faster than rice.You cut up your favorite vegetables by the time the noodles are done, and then stir fry everything in high heat..boom your noodles are done.
I make two types of Noodles, one using the Indian spices, and the one using Chinese sauces.I love the chinese variety as its completely different from our regular curry taste, but you have to have the right sauces to come up with the right taste.The main ingredients for good chinese noodles are soy sauce and chilli sauce.The trick lies in the chilli sauce, we need to select the hottest variety rather than the sour ones from the International aisle in the grocery store.
The chilli sauce I use is nothing but the soaked red chili flakes in oil.I dont have the name of the sauce right now, but I will try to get the name and update this post.
Now here's the receipe

Ingredients:

1 packet regular egg noodles or you can use the Noodles from your top ramen packets.
3 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp chilli sauce/ chilli garlic sauce (I used the sambal olek which is the malaysian chilli sauce variety, its extremly hot)
1tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
1tsp chopped green chillies
2 tsp sesame oil

Vegetables
2 cups broccoli florets.
1 cups carrot strips
1 cup capsicum strips
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup Onion cut into strips
1 cup chopped spring onions.
1 cup chinese sprouts (optional)

Method:
Cook the noodles as instructed in the package, filter the water and then run it under cold water
Stir fry the Broccoli florets in a pan without oil, with just a sprinkle of salt.Keep it seperate.
Heat up the sesame oil in a wide bottomed pan /wok
Add the chopped garlic, ginger and green chillies
Now add the onions and the fry well in high heat, now add the capsicum,carrots and the sprouts(op), strir well.Now add the soy sauce and chilli sauce mix well for two minutes.
Now add the Cooked noodles and stir well to coat all the sauces.Now check the salt and spice level, you can add more salt or chilli sauce depending on your taste.
Now add the chopped spring green onions and stir fried broccoli to the noodles and stir well.

Serve piping hot!!

Note: Sometimes I save the extra chilli sauce that we get from the chinese take out and use for this noodles and fried rice. This sauce is great for this noodles.