Vegetable Variety Show stir fry

This flexible stir-fry is an excellent way to get a few portions of your five-a-day on one tasty plate. It's also brilliant for making use of leftover vegetables: basically any greens - and even evil old mushrooms (despite recent signs of a truce, me and mushrooms remain involved in a longstanding feud) - will fit in just fine. Flavour-wise, that list of ingredients might sound a bit plain, but it's surprisingly rich in flavour...sometimes too much so, when I've been too generous with the ginger...whilst not being too tangy to scare of spice sceptics. In fact, this is one dish that my usually spice/exotic flavours-averse mother-in-law  really, really likes, which is recommendation enough.

I sometimes substitute the broccoli with white cabbage, which works just as well...As mentioned earlier, almost any (i.e. no sprouts) vegetable will work with this one! Even better, after the inevitable work-intensive chopping, this dish basically cooks itself.

Ingredients (makes plenty for two)

• Dried medium or thick egg noodles (use one 'nest' of noodles per diner)
• Soy sauce - to taste
• A thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large carrot, cut into thin slices
• 1 broccoli, cut into chunks and parboiled for 2-3 minutes
• Half a bag of beanshoots
• 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable or groundnut oil.
• Optional:
• 1 - 2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of toasted sesame oil        

How to make

The important thing is to have all your ingredients ready before you fire up the wok pan or large frying pan.

So, start by chopping your vegetables, onion, garlic and ginger, not forgetting to parboil the broccoli for just a minute or a few if you're using it. Set aside. Boil your noodles by following the instructions on the packet - usually, four minutes is enough and with thinner noodles it could take even less time. Make sure you don't have to reach too far for the soy sauce and sesame oil (if using).

Once all your ingredients are ready to be stir fried, heat up the oil in the pan. Start by stir frying the onion for a few minutes, until lightly brown. Next, throw in the sliced carrots, ginger and garlic and fry for a few minutes. It's important to keep the vegetables moving on the pan - you don't want to burn anything, but the pan needs to be reasonably hot for the stir frying to work properly. Next, add your main vegetable - broccoli or cabbage - and the soy sauce (and sesame oil is using). Fry for a few minutes, moving the veggies constantly on the pan, until the broccoli or cabbage has softened slightly (you can tell this is working when the vegetables shrink a bit). Throw in the beanshoots and fry for two minutes, followed by the boiled and drained noodles. Add more soy sauce if you want to, plus a generous sprinkling of black pepper. Mix everything together, turn off the heat and serve immediately - this dish has a bad habit of going cold relatively quickly so avoid delays in dishing up. It may well look a bit unappetising - basically a brown mess with some green and orange bits peeping out - but that flavour...anything but dull! Who needs meat, eh?