"Honey" Pork & Vegetable Stir-Fry w Noodles

We had a tonne of fresh veges that needed using, including mung beans and an almost ridiculous amount of broccoli (if you read this blog a lot, you'll know about my love of this vegetable, seriously can't get enough!) - this led me to the decision that dinner would be a stir fry of some variation.

So with type-of-dinner sorted, I set about finding a stir fry sauce I could make from scratch, because I'm too scared to make it up completely yet.  Google, my dear friend.  Found a recipe for "Honey Pork Noodle Stir-Fry".  Sounded interesting, and we had all the listed ingredients, so away I went! :)  However, I did think before I started cooking, that having peanut butter in the ingredients list would make it more satay flavoured than honey, but I was willing to try.  (I was right by the way!)

INGREDIENTS

300g pork (diced)

3 packets of chicken 2 minute noodles (I like Maggi, but you can use whatever)

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon crushed ginger

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons peanut butter

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

2 tablespoons honey

3/4 cup chicken stock (I used 2 of the noodle flavour sachets mixed with 3/4 cup hot water - just as good!  And it means you're only left with 1 flavour sachet to wonder what to do with!)

assorted vegetables

- carrots

- capsicum (yellow and red)

- onion

- mung beans

- butter beans

- cabbage

- broccoli

METHOD

• Heat sesame oil, and add the onion, garlic and ginger, cooking until tender
• Add the pork and brown
• Add the soy sauce, honey, chilli sauce, peanut butter and stock (the stock can make it a little runny but meh, just simmer until it thickens haha!)
• Toss in the vegetables, and mix well - I tend to add the veges that are take longest to cook first, like capsicum and carrots, adding the cabbage, and broccoli almost last
• Add in 1 uncooked packet of 2 minute noodles (minus the flavour sachet obviously)
• While that simmers, cook the remaining 2 packets of noodles in the microwave
• Serve the stir fry veges on a bed of the unflavoured 2 minute noodles

I thought this was going to be a bit disastrous because when I added the stock, the sauce it made was super runny, and to me, stir-frys are not really supposed to be swimming in soupy stuff.  I tasted the sauce, and it was yum (although very much resembling satay sauce... not honey!) so I figured it would at least taste nice, if not being the normal stir-fry.  

As for adding the noodles to the mixture as well as serving it on noodles; well heck.  I LOVE 2 minute noodles.  I can't lie to you.  They were a staple of my childhood after school snack diet haha.  They're awesome.  So I'm glad they went so well with this stir-fry, as I didn't fancy rice again (having eaten it for lunch!).

Now that I've tried this, I'm going to be a little more game next time to try my own version.  :)

Recipe Inspiration: http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/recipes/2006/january/honey-pork-noodle-stir-fry