Mung Bean Noodle Thai Stirfry

 So one of my favorite healthy meals to make is Mung Bean Noodle Stir Fry. Mung beans are a low fat and low glycemic index noodle made from of course, mung beans. They are used in most Asian cultures and can be found at Asian grocery stores and sometimes on the Asian isle of normal grocery stores. Low in price, they do not require boiling in hot water to soften, and thus take less energy to prepare. They are pretty much tasteless, so it is required that the person preparing them understand basic flavoring to give these noodles substance.

So my 'Recipe' (it is hard to have recipes when you cook on the fly with what is at hand.)

3 chicken 'tenders(half a large breast), 1 package of mung bean noodles, half a bag of mung beans, 2 onions, 1 red pepper, 2 carrots, a handful of cilantro, 1 T vegetable oil, 4 T soy sauce, 1.5 T Fish Sauce, 1.5 T Rice wine vinegar, 1/2 a medium cabbage, 1/2 cup flour, 2 T cornstarch, T pepper and Salt, 3 cloves garlic, 1/2 cup chicken stock

Writing this down I am starting to realize that recipes I consider 'a breeze' are more complicated that I realize >.>

To start, open your mung bean noodles, and put them in a bowl and cover them with water and set aside, after 15-20 minutes, pour them into a colander and let the water stain off.

After this, you dry your chicken (thawed!) off, then mix the flour, cornstarch, pepper and salt together, and coat bite size piece of chicken in the mixture. Set a wok/large and deep frying pan up with the vegetable oil, and brown the chicken until it is about 90% cooked. Remove the chicken and place in a covered container/plate on the side.

Next you cut up your onions and red pepper and cook them down, then add the garlic and cabbage and chicken stock(which helps steam the cabbage) and cook until the chicken stock has mostly cooked down and the cabbage is starting to wilt down. Now it is time to add your noodles and mung beans, then once you have them stirred with the vegetable, add your sauces (fish, soy and rice vinegar), and re add the chicken (it will have finished cooking because of its own steam if you had it covered, and if you cooked it all the way before hand it is going to be dry and chewy) and then cook for another 3-5 minutes on medium heat to get all that flavor soak in.

Now all that is left is putting the food on a plate, and adding finely chopped raw carrots and fresh cilantro to the top.

This meal has a very heavy 'health' flavor to it. The carrots add crunch and there is a plethora of textures and flavors from all the veggies. You can easily make this vegetarian as well by deleting the fish sauce (:(), and chicken and substituting mushroom/vegetable broth.

Oh yes and on a final note, the drink in the top picture is one of toms and my favorites. It is a sour blue raspberry soda. You take about 1.5 ounces of Rosas cocktail mix blue raspberry, a few small squirts of raspberry agave nectar(to sweeten!), a few drops of lemon, and top with soda water and you get a first class sour blue raspberry soda.