how to make fried noodles

If you are like me, a student with no money and a lot of debt *phails*, then you don’t exactly have a lot of money to spend on food nor the time to prepare anything grand. For this purpose, I’m now, more than a year after I said I’d do it, going to make a post about how to make an easy dish of fried noodles.

From start to finish, it takes maybe 20-25 minutes to do, but despite how simple and cheap it is (per serving, this dish costs about 10 DKK ~ €1.30 ~ US$1.90 to make, not including the expense of electricity), it is totally tasty!

Now, I admit that I’m not the greatest of chefs. In fact, I’m probably down right deadly. Most of the stuff I cook can be used to power nuclear plants and is less safe to handle than toxic waste. For this reason, I rarely cook for friends as I prefer them alive as opposed to living dead. However, the few things I *do* know how to cook, I cook well, and if you don’t believe me, ask Heavy, he thought the fried noodles I made for him tasted kickass-tastic! >:3

And just to give credit where credit is due, I originally learned how to make fried noodles from South Korea (though the ingredients I use and the way I do it now is pretty different from back then), who in turn learned it from a hot asian chick now living in Norway that he has yet to introduce me to, you damn bastard! >:3 Share the wealth XP

Anywho, I’ve added some images to help along with the recipe (you can click the images for bigger versions). Now…

Things you will need:

Vegeta (An over 9000 Croatian condiment that tastes salty rather than spicy, but feel free to use whatever spice fits your taste)	Noodles (I use egg noodles because they have more flavour. If you’re vegan or allergic to eggs, then I recommend noodles made with 5-10% corn flour.)
Veggies (I only use maize on a can, but you can substitute with a veggie mix, just defrost it first)	Stove and pot & pan

You will also need soy sauce, but I forgot to take a picture of it HAHA so deal with it. I use Kikkoman, just in case anyone is wondering.

Instructions

	Make the preperations. Add water in the pot and a little bit of oil (olive oil, sunflower seed oil, or whatever tickles your fancy) in the pan. Turn the heat on the pot (highest setting).
	When the water starts bubbling at the bottom of the pot, you should turn on the heat for the pan (highest setting) so that it’s hot for by the time the noodles are cooked. When the water comes to a full boil, turn off the heat for the pot (use the residual heat and save a little money), and put in the noodles.
	When you just add the noodles, they’re gonna be hard, but after a 10-15 seconds of boiling, use a fork to seperate the noodle balls a bit so that everything boils equally. Thin noodles take about 60 seconds to boil, thick noodles about twice that. A trick with pasta and noodles to keep them from sticking is not to add oil, but to constantly stir it. This also prevents them from absorbing too much water, which would make them too soggy to fry properly. Note that it is better to undercook them a little at this point (I’ll explain why later).
	At this point, the pan should be hot, so turn it down to medium heat, give the pan a ‘whirl’ (lift it up and spread the oil around), drain the noodles, and the throw them in the pan. Be sure you’ve drained the noodles properly as pouring water into hot oil causes a very violent reaction.
	With a wooden spoon (metal scratches the teflon of the pan), stir the noodles around until they’ve absorbed all the oil.
	At some point, you should notice that the noodles will ‘resist’ more when you are stirring. This is because the water inside the noodles has evaporated. At this point add some soy sauce to the noodles and stir them again. Adding the soy sauce will make the noodle cook again which is why it was better to undercook them a little. After this, add the Vegeta (or whatever spice you want to use).
	When you again begin to feel a bit of resistance while stirring, add the veggies.
	Mix the entire thing around to make sure the veggies get some of the heat. After about 30~60 seconds, turn off the pan and use the residual heat.
	Pour into a plate or bowl.
	OM NOM NOM NOM!!

And that would be that. Note that this is like the most basic form of the recipe, i.e. the ‘foundation’. You can add much more to it, such as meat (e.g. chicken breast), other veggies, shellfish, etc.

Got eggs?

Noodles have decent amounts of carbs, but unfortunately no proteins. Since I rarely eat meat, I get roughly 90% of all my proteins from eggs (which I obviously eat many off then), so that’s what I’m gonna show you how to make. Vegans and people allergic to eggs, sorry, but you’re on your own with this :/

What you need

Pan (use about three times as much oil as you would if only frying noodles)	Eggs + small bowl

Instructions

	Crack the eggs into the bowl.
	Poke holes in the yolk to make it easier to beat.
	Beat the eggs to mix the whites and the yolk.
	Pour it on a pre-heated pan set at medium heat. At this point, you are essentially making a Serbian omelette called kajgana (omelette without anything in it). SIDE NOTE: while writing this, I got the idea of making a folded omelette with fried noodles and maize on the inside. It didn’t taste as well as I had hoped it would, but that was probably because I failed a bit at making it. See end result here.
	Before the omelette fries all the way through, add some Vegeta and then seperate it into bitesize chunks using a big wooden spoon.
	Stir the pieces around a bit to make sure they a fried all the way through.
	Set the eggs aside and start making the noodles as explain above.
	When the time comes to add the veggies, also add the eggs so they can re-heat.
	Serve ^^