My husband has started taking some of my food pictures. He is so much better at it than I am! I thought this one was particularly good. You can make these Chinese Pan Fried Noodles with soft noodles or you can pan fry them (I suppose the name wouldn’t be “pan fried” anymore, but you know what I mean :-)). This time I just left them soft, but I included the steps for making them crunchy. I first started pan frying noodles years ago because of a recipe in Robin Robertson’s The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. She has you toss the noodles in soy sauce and sesame oil which is really good, but just the idea of pan frying noodles without deep frying I like.

8 ounces fresh thin Chinese noodles
2 tablespoons oil (if you are pan frying the noodles)
2 carrots sliced
1 teaspoon oil
Soy or seitan stips (I used seitan from whole foods)
1-2 tablespoon oil
1 cup snap or snow peas
1 onion cut into chunks
8 ounces mushrooms cut into half or fourths (depending on size)
1/4 cabbage chopped in big pieces
1/2 can baby corn
Salt
1/2 cup rice wine
1/4 soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1-2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 green onions chopped

1. Boil water and add noodles for a couple of minutes and drain.
2. Let noodles dry on paper towels or a towel.
3. Once noodles are dry, heat oil in a medium skillet, add the noodles in a thin layer, and press them down to get more noodles touching the pan. Cook over medium low heat until the bottom gets crunchy.
4. Flip the noodles over and cook the other side until they gets crunchy (you can use a plate to do the flipping).
5. Meanwhile, put the carrots in a bowl with water and microwave for 2-3 minutes until they are soft, and drain.
6. Heat the teaspoon oil in another skillet and brown the soy or seitan strips.
7. Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok over high heat.
8. Add snap or snow peas and cook on high stirring constantly for a couple of minutes.
9. Add the onions and mushrooms and continue to cook over high heat until the veggies start to soften and get brown spots. They should be a little soft, but still crunchy.
10. Add the carrots, cabbage, baby corn, and salt to the vegetables and cook for a another minute or so.
11. Add rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and 1 cup of water, and heat through.
12. Mix cornstarch with a little water.
13. Push vegetable to the side of the wok and add the cornstarch mixture to the sauce. Bring it to a slow boil. Sauce should thicken up.
14. Stir everything together.
15. Put noodles in a bowl, top with the stirfry, and sprinkle with green onions.