Stir Fry Glass Noodle (Sotanghon)

I just love Asian style noodles. Whether it's stir fried, crispy, noodles in soup, chow mein, yakisoba, pancit, or in this case sotanghon, I can eat them anytime, any day. Sotanghon is a Filipino dish whose name originated from the Chinese word "tanghoon," meaning glass noodle. Thanks Veggie Girl for enlightening me on its meaning. I find this to be a very versatile dish, in that you can eat it any time of the day. You can serve it for lunch, dinner, and even for an afternoon affair, which I call an in-betweener, and any leftovers will work as a hearty breakfast the following day. Yes, I've had it for breakfast and I enjoyed it with tea and Sweet Hawaiian dinner rolls. Ah! It's just yummy. I hope you enjoy my take on this dish.


Ingredients:

1/2 chicken breast
500 gram bag of vermicelli noodles
1/2 cup of dried black mushrooms also called wood ear mushrooms
6 cloves finely minced garlic
1 large carrot julienne cut
1/2 block of firm tofu, loosely chopped
1/4 cup chopped green onions
3 Tablespoons annato seeds or 1 Tablespoon annato powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Lemon juice as condiment on the side

Procedure:

1. Boil the chicken in about 2 cups of water. Wait for the chicken to cool and shred into strips by hand. Set aside the broth.

2. Soak mushrooms in water in a small bowl. In a big bowl, soak the vermicelli noodles in water. Set both of them aside. Soak the annato seeds or annato powder in hot water until the water turns red, set aside.

3. Cut up all the vegetables and tofu. Test the mushrooms for tenderness and cut up loosely.

3. Using a big wok on low heat, sautee the garlic in about 4 tablespoons of oil until golden brown. Remove the garlic from the oil and set aside.

4. Add the carrots in the heated oil and sautee until tender. Remove from oil.

5. Drain the noodles and transfer to the wok a little at a time, alternating with the vegetables, tofu, chicken, mushrooms, annato liquid, salt and pepper, and chicken broth. Make sure to constantly keep the bottom of the pan wet by adding a little bit of chicken broth to ensure the noodles don't dry up and stick together. Keep stirring well until everything is well incorporated and the color of annato liquid has blended completely into the noodles. You want to give this dish a mild kick on the peppery side so use a lot of black pepper.

The noodles in the pink net bag is 500 grams. I used all of it plus two small packs for this recipe.

These are dried black mushrooms also known as wood ear mushrooms. Use only a little as they tend to expand after they are soaked.

You can garnish the top with any remaining ingredients. Keep some lemon wedges on the side. Sotanghon tastes best with lemon juice squeezed on it. Bottled lemon juice will work well too. You can also serve this with warm Sweet Hawaiian dinner rolls. The salty, but more importantly spicy flavor of this dish contrasts so well with sweet bread. Whether it's breakfast, lunch or dinner, this dish will serve you well. -GG-