Sweet Potato Noodles with Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce
Have you ever heard of Sweet Potato Vermicelli?! Well I’ve had this packet of dried noodles in my cupboard for about 2 years and had forgotten all about it until today. I’m not even sure why I bought it in the first place! Maybe because it is something I hadn’t tried before? When the noodles are dry they are grey but once cooked they become clear. There are only two ingredients to these noodles; sweet potato flour and water!
Sweet Potato Vermicelli
After over-indulging in pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, tonight’s dinner really needed to be healthy and nutritious! So I dug out all the vegetables from the fridge and decided to make a stir fry in black bean sauce. Fermented black beans can be found in Chinese supermarkets in bottles. Ideally you would use the dried black beans rather than the bottles of ready made black bean sauce, however if you want to make this recipe super quick and easy then feel free to use bottled sauces.
Unfortunately the packet of noodles didn’t have any cooking instructions so I decided to guess it. In hindsight, I should have just looked it up online as there are plenty of websites offering advice! Lessons learned and all that… 🙂
Sauce ingredients
Ingredients
- 1 packet of Sweet Potato Vermicelli
- 3tbs fermented blackbeans
- 4 cloves of garlic (chopped)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 0.5 tsp sugar
- 1 tbs light soy sauce
- 1 tbs dark soy sauce
- 1 tbs sesame oil
- 1 tbs vegetable oil
- 1 tbs corn flour
- Water
- Stir frying vegetables (I used broccoli, courgettes, carrots and leeks)
- Coriander (I had a bunch of stalks left over so used them)
Black Bean Sauce
Method
- Boil the noodles for 5 minutes (you should then ‘shock’ them in cold water and then coat in sesame oil so they don’t get too sticky)
- Blanch vegetables that need to be pre-cooked and set aside (I threw them in with the noodles)
- Mix the black beans, garlic, sugar, salt, soy sauces, salt and sesame oil together in a bowl
- Heat up the vegetable oil and and stir fry the leeks and courgettes
- Add pre mixed black bean sauce ingredients to the pan and stir fry for a couple of minutes
- Add water to create the gravy, thickening with the cornflour (to avoid lumps mix the cornflour with water to create a paste before adding)
- Add the part cooked vegetables and coriander into the sauce and stir around then add the noodles, tossing it all together so all noodles are coated with the sauce
Sweet Potato Noodles in Black Bean Sauce
This recipe makes enough for 6 people and is super filling! The Sweet Potato noodles really soak up a lot of the sauce, so the dish ends up quite dry but tasty. I think I over cooked the noodles as they were quite sticky! This may also be because I didn’t ‘shock’ them with cold water to stop the cooking process.
Overall I’d say that the sweet potato vermicelli is a tasty a alternative for people who are looking for an alternative to wheat noodles! And since it is a stir fry, very quick to cook for a mid-week meal…
I’ve also just realised that my soy sauces aren’t gluten free! So please buy GF versions if needed! 🙂
tea and sesame 