This Christmas I bought my dad Anna Ansari’s Silk Roads: A Flavour Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing, and when flicking through it this recipe instantly caught my eye. In previous interviews, Ansari has said it is one of her own favourite recipes and highlighted how variations of it can be found across Russia and Central Asia with differing ingredients depending on locales and accessibility. I have made some mild adaptations from Ansari’s recipe to include more accessible ingredients and make it more uni-budget friendly. This dish comes together very easily, is packed with vegetables and is absolutely delicious (both hot and cold, so it is good for leftovers too!).
Ingredients:
- 100g dried vermicelli (sweet potato, mung bean or rice; alternatively, you can use thin pasta strands)
- 3 tbsp sunflower oil
- 1 onion
- Thumb-sized piece of ginger
- 3 garlic cloves
- 500g minced lamb
- 3 tsp ground peppercorns
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- ½ tsp chilli powder
- 2 peppers
- 2 carrots
- 2 tsp dark soy sauce
- 3 tsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 2 spring onions
- Handful of chopped coriander leaves
Instructions:
- Cook the dried vermicelli following the pack’s instructions (typically boiling them for 10 minutes), then drain them and set aside.
- Heat the oil in a large pan (that you have a lid for) over a medium-high heat. While it warms up, thinly slice the onion into half-moons and then cook them for 2 minutes. Mince the garlic and ginger, then add to the pan.
- Add the lamb, peppercorn, cumin, salt and chili powder to the pan. Break up the meat with a spoon and cook for about 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cut up the pepper and carrots in thin matchstick-like slices, then add them to the pan with 4 tablespoons of water, cover the pan with a lid and cook for 5-10 minutes (until the carrots have softened up a bit).
- Meanwhile, use kitchen scissors to cut up the drained noodles.
- Take the lid off the pan, turn the heat up and cook off any excess liquid. Then, turn the heat to low, add the noodles, both soy sauces and vinegar.
- Toss everything together and take off the heat. Slice up the spring onions and scatter it over the funchoza alongside the chopped coriander. Enjoy!
Image provided by Maddie Everett-Heath.