Sichuan mushroom noodles

Serves 4

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time:
15 minutes

Ingredients
2 tbsps wok oil
2 large portobello mushrooms, cut into smallish dice
125g fresh shiitake mushrooms, cut into small dice
150g oyster mushrooms, cut into small dice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 green chilli, halved and thinly sliced
1 tbsp Chinese five spice powder
2 tsp Sichuan peppercorns, crushed
1½ tbsp palm sugar (or light muscovado)
½ tsp chiu chow
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 ½ tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
1 packet of baby pak Choi, cut into individual leaves and washed
200g baby sweetcorn, cut into 3 or 4
4 spring onions, finely chopped, white and green separated
450g wok ready medium thread noodles
1 tsp sesame oil
50g peanuts, chopped

Method
Into a wok add half of the oil and heat until hot. Add all of the mushrooms and a generous seasoning of salt and cook for around 10 minutes, stirring from time to time.  Cook the mushrooms until all of the liquid has come out and cooked off.  Add the garlic, chilli, five spice, sichuan peppercorns, ½ tbsp sugar and ½ tbsp of soy sauce.  Stir through and cook for a couple of minutes until bubbling fragrant and the liquid has evaporated - around 3 minutes.  Put into a bowl and cover to keep warm.

While the mushrooms are cooking, mix the the chiu chow, hoisin, soy, the remaining sugar and peanut butter with 100ml water to create a sauce.

Into the wok put the remaining oil in the pan (don’t wash it out) and heat.  Put the wet pak choi Into the pan stir then add the sweetcorn and the spring onion whites and half of the greens and fry for a couple of minutes until just tender. Add the noodles and stir through the vegetables and then add the sauce, then fry until the noodles are hot and everything is well mixed through.

Put the noodles into a bowl and top with the mushrooms, the remaining spring onion greens and the peanuts.

If you want the noodles to be a little more spicy, add a little more chiu chow.