Noodles with purslane, enoki mushrooms and eggplant
This delicious dish of noodles with purslane, enoki mushrooms and eggplant is topped off by a delicious miso paste-based sauce.
Noodles with purslane
A few weeks ago I was at the toko (Chinese supermarket) and if there’s anything I like, it’s taking ingredients I don’t know that well and making something fun with them. In this case I actually wanted to make a completely different noodle dish so I had already made the noodles with chicken and peanut sauce. In the toko I had my eye on a very strange eggplant. A kind of mega large pod that was very long. I didn’t know it in any case. So it went into the basket.
As well as a bunch of enoki mushrooms. Which I already knew but also don’t use on a daily basis. Through my regular online shop I had ordered winter purslane that same day. So I wanted to make something that would use all those ingredients. Not a logical combination but somewhere it seemed tasty.
Purslane
An important part of the noodles with purslane was, of course, that purslane. I previously did not have fond memories of this vegetable. When I was little I spent a lot of time at a friend’s farm and purslane was often on the menu there. As a kind of mash. But I didn’t like it. A bit sour and unpleasant.
But since purslane is so healthy, I thought it would be nice to wipe that childhood trauma out of the way.
So there is a difference between winter and summer purslane. You can get the winter purslane until about April. Summer purslane starts as early as mid-March. You actually rarely see the vegetable in the supermarket and one of the reasons may be that it is very fragile. And bruises quickly. If you have bought it fresh then it is therefore also important to use the purslane quickly.
Carefully wash and drain it and then process it. This can be done very well in these noodles with purslane, also because you stir-fry them briefly. And by brief, I mean really brief. It’s almost even faster than spinach when it comes to shrinking the vegetable.
If you cannot find the purslane you can substitute this with spinach if you want.
Superfast
The noodles with purslane are also mega-fast to make. You spend most of your time cooking the soba noodles, which takes a few minutes. While those are cooking you fry the eggplant. Because I had this really long thin eggplant they are nice round slices.
I made the miso sauce based on miso and passata (tomato base). And added all kinds of seasonings that I happened to have around. The result was a super tasty sauce. You’d want to make this over and over again just for the sauce alone!
If you have any mushrooms left you might want to try this delicious mushroom and shiitake dumpling recipe or if you’re a big fan of noodles try this Caribbean noodle dish.
Noodles with purslane and eggplant
Ingredients
- 150 gr soba noodles
- 200 gr winter purslane
- 200 gr enoki mushrooms
- 1 diced eggplant
Dressing/sauce
- 2 tbsp miso paste
- 150 ml water
- 2 tbsp sweet chili sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 lemon juice
- 100 ml passata
- 1 tsp sesame seeds toasted
- Put on a large pan of water for the soba noodles. While the water gets to a boil, get started on the vegetables.
- Dice the eggplant and wash the purslane. Remove the bottom of the enoki mushrooms and carefully separate them a bit.
- Add the noodles to the pan and cook according to package directions until al dente. Drain and rinse.
- Heat a wok with some oil and fry the eggplant in it until tender. Remove from the pan and now fry the purslane until it shrinks. This goes very quickly. Even faster than spinach. Do not overcook. Shrink and remove from the pan again. This takes barely a minute.
- Finally, fry the enoki mushrooms. Again, this goes very quickly.
- Because the sauce is relatively salty, I don’t use salt on the noodles and vegetables.
- For the sauce, take a small saucepan and in it put the miso paste and water. While stirring, bring this to a smooth sauce. Then add the chili sauce, sugar, lemon juice and the passata. Stir it well and taste to see if it is to your liking. Not every miso paste is the same. The sauce is quite salty but should be well flavored.
- Put all the vegetables and mushrooms back into the wok and add the noodles. Warm briefly and serve with the sauce.
Nutrition Information per portion
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
