Cooking With Knorr: Chinese Rice Noodle Bowl With Soya Bean & Assorted Vegetables

My favourite season has arrived with quite a huge bang this time: it has been raining incessantly in Mumbai ever since June 10 and I am pretty convinced we are getting two years' worth of showers in one year. Not complaining. But people all around me are falling sick and from one such ill fated client meeting, I caught the flu. Which means I have been so indisposed, I can barely sit for a minute without erupting into dry, hacking cough.

I do admit I would have gotten better had I not flushed my doc's prescribed tablets and antibiotic prescription down the loo but seriously, antibiotics have done me more harm than good and I am better off without them.

Several home remedies are being applied but the body seems to be taking its own sweet time to heal. Meanwhile, I am cooped up at home, unable to run or workout (I do meditate and do yoga though). Thankfully, I am still taking baking classes and working from home. That said, I have not stepped out for a week now and the comfort of getting things I need home delivered has further pushed me into hibernation.

But there had to be one day when I would run out of appropriate items in the pantry, after all. That was the day my eyes finally fell on the packet of Ready Mixes from Knorr that were sent to me so I could come up with interesting recipes to try with them.

I have always maintained that no self respecting cook should resort to a ready mix but there I was, coughing and wheezing, thanking god that I had this one ready mix that could potentially save my life. Bit dramatic, ain't I?

So I made this. While also jotting down a pie crust recipe. A bowl of flat rice noodles, with some vegetables I had at home, some soya bean nuggets, Knorr's Ready Mix for Chinese Fried Rice / Noodles. And I realised something: if you cannot cook, a ready mix is not going to save your life. You still had to get your veggies done right, you still had to get the texture of the rice or the noodle perfect or it would be deathly easy to end up with a huge lump of steaming, vaguely Chinese tasting crap on your plate. This thought made me feel immensely happy, given how I have come to believe that I can, indeed, cook.

This was the life saver I had been sent. It made things exponentially easy, yes but I still laboured a bit because I have always maintained, why make it easy when you can make things crazy complex, no?

Don't believe me. Make this. It's very nice, warms you up and is quicker than making it from scratch: a privilege all of us monsoon affected human beings deserve.

Name: Chinese Rice Noodle Bowl With Soya Bean & Assorted Vegetables

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Recipe Source: Me and Knorr

Serves: 2

You need:

30-40 strands of flat rice noodles (use Hakka if you cannot get your hands on these but I highly recommend these)

3 tbsp Knorr Ready Mix Chinese Noodles/Fried Rice

1 medium onion, chopped

1 inch ginger, chopped fine

4-5 big cloves of garlic, smashed

1 green chilli, chopped

A fistful of American corn, frozen
3-4 big fresh mushrooms, chopped

A fistful of soya mini nuggets

A handful of coriander and basil leaves, chopped

1 medium carrot, cubed

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp corn flour dissolved in a cup of water

A pat of butter

(You can also use shredded cabbage, diced green capsicum, chopped spring onions and green peas if you have those, even tofu or paneer if you want a full hearty meal but I had none of those that day so I managed with what I had)

Here's how you make it:

- In a big saucepan, boil a few cups of water. Throw in the noodles and soya nuggets and boil them until the noodles are ready but still retain some bite. Drain it, allow some normal tap water to run through the noodles and soy to stop them cooking in the residual heat. You can drizzle some olive oil in to keep the noodles from sticking if you don't intend using them immediately.

- In a frying pan, heat some butter. Throw in the onions, ginger, green chilli, garlic, carrots and mushrooms. Stir it around on high heat for 2-3 minutes. Throw in the soy nuggets that you boiled too.

- Add the Knorr ready mix now, stir it in well. Add some soya sauce and the cup of corn flour water in. Mix well to avoid lumping and allow everything to simmer nicely for 3-4 minutes. Turn off the heat, throw in the noodles, basil and coriander. If you are using tofu or paneer, throw those in now. Cover and let it rest for 2-3 minutes.

- Serve hot, let it remain slightly soupy. Curl up with your favourite book. Mine, as you will notice, is Book 5 of the Harry Potter series, which I read when I am very sick, and which usually makes me feel better because I spend time wondering what it'd be like to not be a Muggle. I think if I were a non-Muggle, I'd be a free house elf, so I could cook copious amounts of great food for whoever I wanted without shutting my ears in the oven, don't you think? It's therapeutic.