Fried beef and vegetable rice noodle

There are some dishes that my husband is very particular about. This is one of them, that he wouldn't mind waiting at the table for it to be serve right off the stove. It's a fried rice noodle dish. The noodle comes as a package of moist folded sheet that needs to be refrigerated. To prepare the noodle, I heat it up in microwave until hot, then cut the sheet into strips and separate the folded layers in one small bowl of cold water. The noodle absorbs quite a bit of cold water during this process. Once the noodle has been separated, it needs to be cooked immediately to prevent it from sticking together when it cools down or dries up.

Recipe: Fried beef and vegetable rice noodles (for 3)


Ingredients:
- 1/2 package of wet rice noodle sheet, softened and cut to thick strips
- 3-4 oz beef, cut to very thin pieces of 1" long
- 10 oz Chinese broccoli, cut to thin slices, leaves and stems separated
- 1 tablespoon (TB) oil
- 2 teaspoons (tp) garlic, finely chopped
- about 1/2 cup ham stock (salty)
- 2 tp sweet flour sauce
- 2 tp dark soy sauce
- 2 tp sesame oil


Procedure:
1. Heat garlic in 1 TB oil in non-stick pan on med-high heat. Once the garlic starts to sizzle, add Chinese broccoli and stir fry. (Cook the stems first, for 1-2 minutes, then add in the leaves.) Add 1-2 tp of ham stock if necessary to prevent drying up. Remove from pan once the green color of the vegetable freshens up (about 2-3 minutes).
2. Then, while the pan is hot, add beef and let it cook until water starts to come out (about 30 seconds). Add 2 tp of sweet flour sauce to the hot pan surface, and turn heat down to medium. Let the flour sauce cook in the heat. Add 1-2 tp ham stock to dilute the sauce slowly as it sizzles in the pan. Then mix in with the beef. It takes about 1 minute. Do not allow the beef to overcook or the sweet flour sauce to dry out. Once the beef has been fully coated with the sauce, remove the beef from pan.
3. Add about 1/4 cup of ham stock to pan and dilute the sauce that sticks on the pan. Keep the stove at medium to med-high setting. Once the mixture starts to sizzle, add in the rice noodle and stir well. Allow the noodle to absorb most of the liquid, but prevent the rice noodle from sticking together or sticking on the pan. Add in the beef and vegetable and stir. Once the bottom of the pan is without liquid, add in the dark soy sauce and sesame oil on to the pan. Let sizzle for a few second and mix well with all the ingredients. Serve hot.