Beef Fried with Ho Fun Noodles

One of my favourite dishes. It brings back fond memories of childhood trips to Chinatown, my dad's cooking, and also Lang Kwai Fong in Hong Kong after a big night out.

The Chinese restaurants all make this look easy and although my first few attempts at this didn't go so well, I think I've worked it out (more or less). You won't get the smoky flavour that you get in the restaurant (unless you happen to have a proper wok and a commercial-grade gas-fired cooking unit) but it should be good on all other fronts.

Ingredients:
- 1 pack of flat noodles (hor fun)
- 1 beef fillet
- 1 broccoli
- 1 carrot sliced
- Half a tin of water chestnuts sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic sliced finely
- An inch of ginger sliced

Slice the beef up and marinade in sesame oil, salt and pepper.

Cook the noodles as per instructions. For this pack I simply put the in boiling water for 2 minutes with a bit of oil and salt. When you drain them, make sure you run plenty of cold water through to get rid of the starch. If you don't, the noodles will stick together and become difficult to cook.

Simmer the carrot and broccoli for a few minutes but be sure not to cook them completely, as they'll go back in the pan when frying.

Heat up the wok and fry the garlic and ginger. After a few minutes, throw in the beef.

Once the meat has sealed, add the water chestnuts and shortly after the other vegetables.

Add the noodles back to the pan and mix in. Separate the different strands with chopsticks but take care not to break the noodles up.

Season to taste with light soy, sugar, oyster sauce, sesame oil, white pepper. Ensure it is all mixed in and the noodles are well coated. Add dark soy at the end to give the noodles a darker colour (as you can see I forgot about this point).

The great thing about this dish is that after the slicing and marinating, the cooking part is very quick. You can also use various combinations of ingredients, cooked in a similar manner - for example:
- chicken with chinese mushrooms (soaked and sliced) and bamboo shoots
- prawns with beansprouts and spinach (no need to pre-simmer any of the veg)
- vegetarian: baby corn, mange tout, chinese leaf, peppers of all different colours. All sliced into strips. Again no need to pre simmer anything except the noodles.