Pork Drunken Noodles

Time for pork drunken noodles. Now don't be fooled by the name, this is fresh, spiky, salty and satisfying while also still packing a veggie punch and not a drop of booze in sight. Pork drunken noodles gets all its flavour from a combination of three core ingredients. We've got some oyster sauce, a little bit of soy sauce and my favourite, fish sauce. On their own, each of these is a really strong flavour but together they combine to create this gorgeous hit of umami, that extra flavour, that saltiness, that kind of headiness which is so gorgeous. I'm just going to combine these in a little glass jar and it's this magic elixir of sauces that is going to bring this pork drunken noodles to life. The great thing about all these sauces is that most of them will sit in your store cupboard ready for use and they'll last for a really long time so it's worthwhile getting your hands on them. And now that we have this mixed together, I'm just going to give it a whisk up and this is now ready to bring this whole dish together. So I'll leave this aside. We have some noodles. I've got some flat rice noodles straight into a pot of boiling water. I'm going to turn off the heat and let them soak just until they're nice and tender. Veggies. We have a combination of some baby sweet corn, I've got some bok choy and I have some spice from some chillies I'm going to add in here. The great thing about this recipe is it's a perfect one to use up whatever veggies you have in the fridge. I'm using baby sweet corn and bok choy but any greens will work here once you have them nice and finely sliced which is exactly what we need to do with these boys. So with our bok choy, I'm going to slice these up into kind of quarters so you get a bit of the leaf and you also get a nice bit of the core too. So you've got a nice pile of bok choy. I'm just going to take some of these baby sweet corn and slice them in half. It's great colour and it's great crunch. Well worth adding. Okay, veggies are looking good. For a little bit of spice, I've got three gorgeous bird's eye chillies. Now, do track these down because they are seriously spicy and if you like spicy food like I do, they're the ones to add. You're going to go fine slice on these. Six garlic cloves, finely sliced. Get some oil in a pan on a high heat. While that comes up to temp, drain the noodles. Grab the garlic and chilli and get it frying. Toss in the sweet corn and the bok choy and give it all a good toss. Now, this is what I'm talking about. All that prep now comes together really quickly. I've got my bok choy, I've got my chilli, my garlic, all that gorgeous sweet corn and it's all taking on a bit of colour. It's charring up in the pan but also it's softening down and that bok choy is really going to reduce down and once it has, that's when you know it's time to add the noodles and add the sauce. Okay, we're in a good place with our veggies. So, transfer them out. Right, veggies cooked, noodles cooked. Let's talk about our pork. I have a nice pork loin fillet and I'm just very quickly going to slice this into medallions. If you have one that has a little bit too much of this sinew, you're just going to slice that off, just using a sharp knife. As a cut of meat, this pork loin fillet is quite a versatile one and it works in so many different recipes but it particularly works well with all those gorgeous umami flavours from the soy sauce, the fish sauce and that oyster sauce. Now, when you're wok frying, important that you don't overcrowd the pan. So, this to me looks like I need to do it in two batches. So, I'm going to add a little more oil to the pan and we're going to lay in about half that meat mix. Get in there and you're looking for a nice bit of browning. When it's brown and starting to catch, toss the first batch onto the veg and go again for another round, keeping as much of the oil in the pan as possible. Right, pork is looking good. We've got our veggies, they're going straight back into the pan with my little second batch of pork and now it's time to bring all of this together. Straight in with those noodles and now our magic elixir, that umami hit of soy sauce, oyster sauce and a little bit of fish sauce. This all goes straight over the top and just to bring it together with a little bit of sweetness, I've got a teaspoon of sugar. The sugar not only adds sweetness but it'll help to thicken this sauce. So, give it a sprinkle all the way over and now it's time to toss. Just let that sauce kind of bubble away and coat those noodles but this is pretty much done and good to go. To amp up the Asian flavours, add a few fresh Thai basil leaves and serve it up steaming hot and fragrant. Now, it would be rude not to give this a go and try some straight out of the pan. Just add a little bit of Thai basil. It's one of those ingredients that makes a dish like this so if you can track it down, it's so worthwhile adding. Powerhouse of flavour. 15 minutes. Fresh, tasty and seriously spicy. Yum.