5 Minute Meal - Steak Noodle Stir-Fry

It's the 5 Minute Meal Challenge, the time in the kitchen where I show that you can create something very delicious in a short amount of time. And today, I have an absolute doozy. It's a steak noodle stir fry. I've got five minutes on the clock, so let's get cooking. Right, first job, pan on nice and hot. Next job, steak. To the fridge. We're going to grab off a lovely cut of steak, nice marbling of fat, really rich red colour. And all you want to do is slice this super, super thinly. So take that out. We're going to grab this up and just get a nice, fine slice on this. The beauty of doing this is that it's going to cook out really quickly, so I just want to make sure that my pan is up nice and hot. It's coming to temperature, because this all needs to cook off really, really quickly. So nice, thin slivers, keeping your eye on where your fingers are at, at all times. Now, what I will say to you is that all you want to do is season this up with a little bit of sesame oil. Now, the sesame oil is going to add really great flavour, it's that nuttiness that really gives you something that's gorgeous to start off the flavour in your stir fry. So give that a nice little sliver, and I'm going to add this straight to the pan, absolutely no oil, and completely raw. So straight into a hot pan, and you want to get this all the way coating the base of the pan, and basically, I'm not going to touch this at all. We're going to let that fat render out, we're going to let little bits of it char up, give it a really good cookout before you start mixing it through. We've got 3 minutes and 57 seconds on the clock, I'm going to give my hands a good wash here at this point. So, you want to make sure that that pan doesn't get smoking, smoking hot, but to the point where that steak is going to start to render out the fat and become lovely and sizzling and gorgeous. Now, like I said, we're going to season this up with a touch of sesame oil, that gorgeous nuttiness, which is really lovely at this point, and I think steak just always benefits from a little bit of pepper, so get that straight across the pan, and leave that to sit. Right, next job, our veggies. I've got some beautiful carrots, and I also have some bok choy, bok choy is my favourite go-to stir-fry ingredient, and it's a really great one to add in here, lots of nutrition in it, and best of all, it cooks out quite quickly. So up with our knife, we're going to grab off that bok choy and literally just take it into nice quarters. The great thing is that you get that leafy green, but you also get that kind of tootsome bite from the bottom of it as well, so it's always a good one to add in here. Now, little slivers is what we're looking for, or quarters is what we're after, so straight in there, this is looking pretty good at this point. I have some straight-to-wok noodles, which we're going to add in as well, but for the moment, it's all about our veggies. So grab off a veggie peeler, and with this, because we're doing the speedy version, is you just want to peel your carrot, and then we're going to take nice, lovely ribbons of this that we're going to add straight into the pan. So straight off with our veggie peelings, and our steak is coming to temperature here, have a look at this, because this is where the fat starts to render out, and you would be tempted to get in there and start moving it around, but I would say don't do it, especially with this short amount of cook time, and I only have two and a half minutes left, you want to make sure that it gets really charred and golden and gorgeous, and then it will continue to cook out after that. So, right, veggie peelings is what we're after, so nice little thin slivers of that carrot, so go to town on this, this is a lovely little job to get little hands in the kitchen, and get involved. Nice little slivers of carrot going in there, and then the same with this one here, steak is looking absolutely gorgeous at this point, so I'm going to turn it in, one minute and fifty-nine seconds left on the clock, I feel like we need to crack on, so this is looking pretty good, little bit of waste, but that's okay, don't worry about that too much, you can pop it in a juicer, you can pop it in a whole load of different things. Right, our gorgeous carrot gets straight in there, all that little carrot around there gets in all those meaty juices, we're going to straight in there with our bok choy, and let the heat start hitting it. To this, we're going to add in a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of oyster sauce, it's that glossy sort of sweet umami flavour we're getting from that, and then to bring it all together with a bit of sharpness and to round out the flavour, some rice wine vinegar, about a tablespoon. That sizzle, all that flavour that's going in there is going to create really tender veggies, so time to get in there with the tongs and you can get that steak moving. Okay, start pulling it off the base of the pan, you're going to notice as this cooks out all that steak is going to get coated in that glossy sauce, with one minute left we're looking pretty good, you want those veggies to have a nice bite to them, so this is pretty much where you want to be, that sauce as you can see is really coming together now in the bottom of the pan, and this is where you can start getting your noodles involved. So these great straight to wok noodles are a fantastic one to add in here because they cook out really quickly while you're cooking in the pan, and they're going to get coated in all those lovely juices in the pan as well. So right, let's get things cracking, so we have a serving plate, I've got 43 seconds, I'm going to give the pan a quick toss and get things all beautifully mixed together, so this is what we're after, sauciness, noodle action, veggies, all the beautiful things coming together, and I'm slightly out of breath at this point, but you can see, beautiful veggies, nice tender meat, with 26 seconds on the clock, I'm feeling pretty confident, we're going to take up some of those noodles, we're going to take up some of those veggies, and we're going to get this plated up, I lost a noodle or two but that's alright, get that straight into your lovely serving dish, and the last thing you want to serve this up with is a little bit of sesame seeds and a little bit of herbage, and try not to make too much of a mess like I have. We've got 5 seconds on the clock, but I'm going to keep cracking on, 3 seconds on the clock, oh my goodness, 2, 1 second and we're off, look, I missed out the herbs but I promise you it's worthwhile doing so, grab up a little bit of coriander, sprinkle that over the top, and my friends, that's a 5 minute meal challenge, absolutely sorted and accepted, dig in, enjoy.