Name: Mung sprout and noodle stir-fry
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: 150 g Egg noodles (dried); 60 g Mung beans (for sprouting); 30 ml Soy sauce; 15 g Sesame seeds; 4 g Garlic (dried, granules); 2 g Ginger (ground); 1 g Chilli flakes; 25 ml Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed); 10 ml Cider vinegar

Mung sprout and noodle stir-fry

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed).

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves

Burners

Pans

Water

1 L

Active

10 min

Total

15 min

Ingredients

Egg noodles (dried) 150 g
Mung beans (for sprouting) 60 g
Soy sauce 30 ml
Sesame seeds 15 g
Garlic (dried, granules) 4 g
Ginger (ground) 2 g
Chilli flakes 1 g
Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed) 25 ml
Cider vinegar 10 ml

The sprouts go in for ninety seconds at the end and no longer. That is both the cooking instruction and the safety one: heat kills the bacteria the sprouting page is about, and any longer than that and you lose the crunch that was the entire reason for growing them.

Sesame seeds toasted dry in the pan, two minutes, tipped out.
Noodles on. Four minutes usually. Drain, keeping a splash of the water.
Same pan, hot, oil. Garlic granules, ginger and chilli for twenty seconds.
Noodles in with a splash of their water, tossed for a minute.
Sprouts in, soy sauce around the edge of the pan, ninety seconds of hard heat, moving constantly. They should still squeak.
Vinegar off the heat, sesame over.

The pan needs to be hotter than feels sensible. A cool pan steams the sprouts limp, which is the one way to get this dish wrong.

Serves 2.

What this was adapted from

Cantonese bean sprout noodles: the fast stir-fry built on high heat and very little else

fresh garlic, ginger and spring onion → garlic granules, ground ginger and sesame seeds

The aromatics are the dish and none of them keep. Granules and ground ginger give warmth rather than the sharp bite of fresh, and toasted sesame puts back some of the aromatic top note that is otherwise entirely missing.