Hakka Noodles

Before you start

• Cut every vegetable to the same fine matchstick before you light the stove — the stir-fry itself takes 6 minutes and there is no pausing.
• Boil the noodles ahead, rinse them cold, and toss with 1 tsp oil. Cold, oiled noodles do not clump in the pan.
• Use the widest pan you own on the highest flame. Crowding steams the vegetables and the noodles go limp.

Method

1. Boil the noodles in 3 litres of salted water for 1 minute less than the packet says, until just yielding with a firm core.Undercook them deliberately. They finish cooking in the pan and overcooked noodles break into fragments.
2. Drain, rinse under cold running water until completely cool, drain hard and toss with a teaspoon of oil.
3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a kadhai until it shimmers and a shred of cabbage sizzles on contact.
4. Add the garlic, ginger and spring onion whites and stir for 30 seconds — fragrant, not browned.
5. Add the beans and carrot first and toss 90 seconds, then the capsicum and cabbage for another 90 seconds. The vegetables should still crunch.Keep them moving constantly and keep the flame at maximum. Vegetables that sit still release water and the dish stews.
6. Push the vegetables to one side, add the remaining 1 tbsp oil and the noodles, and toss to loosen them.
7. Pour the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, both peppers and 1 tsp salt down the hot side of the pan and toss everything together for 2 minutes.Adding the sauces to the hot metal rather than onto the noodles gives that scorched wok note.
8. Take off the heat, stir through the sesame oil and half the spring onion greens.
9. Scatter the rest of the greens and serve at once, with chilli chicken or manchurian alongside.

Storage

Keeps 2 days refrigerated. Reheat in a hot pan with a teaspoon of oil and a splash of water; microwaving turns them pasty.