Leftover Tuesdays #4 - Asian Noodly Thing

 

It's time again for my favourite food blogging event - Leftover Tuesdays! This months event is being hosted by Mary at Ceres and Bacchus, and was started by the ever clever David at Cooking Chat. My creation this month is a little bit of a stretch as far as "leftovers". The ingredients really were leftovers, as far as it goes, but I didn't cook the first round with them. Mr. Chef had a dinner party on Saturday night, and 'leftover' from that was one leek, one stalk of celery, some odds and ends of fresh parsley, and half an onion. MY contribution is the ground beef I took out of the freezer in anticipation of supper on Saturday night, which was still in the fridge, waiting to be used. So all the leftover odds and ends turned into Asian Noodly Thing. It's the combination of quite a few similar recipes, but using all the bits from my fridge. It tastes pretty good, quite different then my usual ground beef dishes, and it did, in fact, use the leftover half package of Instant Noodles in my pantry too (Clean the Kitchen Tuesdays, anyone?). If you'd like a little kick to this dish, and have a leftover hot pepper or two, you could add that for some heat.

Asian Noodly Thing 

serves 4 

about 30 minutes to prepare 

stovetop 

1 lb ground beef 

1/2 onion, diced 

1 leek, white and pale green parts coarsely chopped 

1 stalk celery, thinly sliced 

2 small carrots, thinly sliced 

1 tsp sesame oil 

1 1/2 tsp fresh ginger 

1 clove garlic, minced 

3/4 cup beef bouillon 

1/3 cup hoisin sauce 

1 Tbsp. soy sauce 

2 tsp cornstarch mixed into 

3 Tbsp cold water 

salt and pepper, to season ground beef 

about 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley 

1/2 package of instant asian noodles (400gr package) OR 2 packages of ramen noodles, no seasoning packet 

Start water boiling for instant noodles. Wait to cook noodles until right before serving. Preheat a medium sized skillet. Spray with cooking spray and add the sesame oil. Add in onions, leeks and celery, and stir fry for about 2 minutes, or until the onion is starting to soften. Add carrots, stir fry for another minute or so, just until carrots start to soften (they will still be crunchy). Remove leek mixture to a bowl, and in same pan brown ground beef with garlic and ginger until beef is thoroughly cooked - season with salt and pepper to taste while cooking. Once beef is cooked, add the leek mixture back to the pan. Stir in the beef bouillon, hoisin sauce and soy sauce. Heat to boiling point, stir the cornstarch into the water, and then into the pan. Cook for about 2 minutes, until thickened, remove from heat, add parsley. Serve over cooked noodles.

Comments

[Mary]

Hey, thanks for your entry. This looks good, I love anything with hoisin sauce.

[Megan]

Hi Mary - I really like Hoisin sauce too. Thanks for hosting Leftover Tuesdays #4!