I simply love Hong Kong. The weather now is just perfect—chilling winter is gone and the summer has arrived. You can see colourful flowers everywhere and people in smart summer clothes! This is the time to chill out at all those beautiful beaches like Shek-O and enjoy summer sunshine to its fullest.

For us, the foodies, Hong Kong welcomes everyone with a wide variety of food ingredients. The supermarkets and the wet markets boast of a plethora of noodles, mushrooms, sauces, teas, dumplings, mangoes, taro cakes and many more. However, in most wet markets (and sometimes in food packaging too) the English signage is missing, making it challenging for expats like me to figure out the name of a particular food ingredient.

Anyways, I picked up two new ingredients from a wet market here, which I never found in India—a pack of thick Chinese egg noodles and Enoki mushrooms or the golden mushrooms! These are tiny mushrooms with very long, thin stems and they occur in clusters. You need to remove the extreme bottom part, de-cluster them and clean them properly. Since these are very delicate and have a subtle, meaty flavour, you have to add these at (almost) the end of cooking. Some like them raw, but since this is my first time with this ingredient, I preferred them cooked.

I tried this dish for the first time and was completely satisfied with the result. My kids and AN (my hubby) were happy too. I was happy because I could feed my fussy-eater kids a lot of vegetables too! It looked absolutely colourful and tasted just right. So, why not find out what it is all about?

Enoki Mushroom-Egg Noodles and Shallow-Fried Vegetables with Chicken

Ingredients:

• Thick Chinese egg noodles: 4 balls
• Fresh golden mushrooms (Enoki mushrooms): 1 pack
• Button mushrooms, halved: 5
• Fresh pineapple: 1½ rings (finely chopped)
• Onion (roughly chopped): 1
• Garlic (finely chopped): 6 pods
• Salt: according to taste
• Oil
• Boneless chicken legs: 2
• Vinegar: 1 tsp
• Baby bell peppers: red: 3
• Baby bell peppers, yellow: 2
• Eggs: 2
• Lobster balls: 5
• Babycorns (diagonally cut into small pieces): 5
• Thai red chillies: 4
• Broccoli florets: 8 or 9
• Snow peas: 8 or 9
• Carrot (cut into thin fingers): ¾
• Tomato Ketchup: 4 tsp
• White pepper powder: 2 tbsp
• Oyster sauce with dried scallops: 4 tsp
• Light soy sauce: 4 tsp
• Honey: 1 tsp
• Beansprouts: handfulWater: 1 cup

Method of Preparation:

Boil the thick Chinese egg noodles with ½ tsp oil, till done, or according to the packet instructions.

Drain and wash them under cold water to prevent sticking.

Shallow-fry the vegetables with little salt. Set aside.

Scramble the eggs with a little salt. Shallow-fry the chicken pieces, marinated for 1 hour with vinegar and a little salt. Also, lightly fry the lobster balls for 2 min. Set aside.

In the frying pan, put some more oil and fry the onion and the garlic. Then add the pineapple pieces and salt and cook for 5 min, the pan being covered.

Meanwhile, make the sauce mix. In a bowl, add the tomato ketchup, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, white pepper powder and honey. Mix this well with a fork.

Add this sauce mix to the pan. Stir continuously for 4 min. Add water, stir once and cover. Let it boil. Add the boiled noodles to this. Mix thoroughly.

Add the Enoki mushrooms. Mix again.

Now add the bean sprouts and mix everything together. Let it cook for 2 min, stirring continuously. Switch off the gas and cover. Let this stand for 10 minutes.

Serve the noodles at the centre of the serving plate and arrange the chicken and the vegetables all around.