Crunchy Veggie Lollipops

 Place a wok or a large frying pan on a high heat on the stove. Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil and allow it to heat up.

Add the packet of Findus Wok Thai Vegetables, and stir-fry for 5 minutes, until the vegetables are starting to soften slightly.

Add the 2 tsp of PnP cook additions Garlic, Ginger & Dhania paste, and stir to combine. Cook for a further 2 minutes.

Add the cooked vegetables to a food processor to chop them finely into a veggie “mince”. (Depending on the size of your food processor, you may have to do this in batches).

Add the veggie mince to a mixing bowl, and allow to cool to room temperature before adding the egg and flour. Mix in the egg and flour, and salt and pepper to taste.

Get a baking tray, and line it with baking paper or foil. Roll the veggie mixture into ping-pong-sized balls, and place on the tray. Place the tray in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, so that the veggie lollipops have time to firm up before you cook them.

Once the veggie lollipop mixture has firmed up, heat up the remaining tablespoon of oil in a non-stick frying pan, and place a few of them in the pan to cook. (Don’t do them all at once; it will be difficult to turn them.)

Cook each batch of veggie lollipops for about 10 minutes, turning often until they’re cooked through and nicely browned on the outside. (You can tell if they’re cooked by feeling how firm they are, or by cutting one open and checking if its cooked through.)

Place each veggie lollipop on a skewer.

For the dipping sauce:
You can make this sauce while the veggie lollipops are firming up in the fridge.

Firstly, you need to make some pineapple juice. Remove the top and bottom, and skin of the pineapple. Cut into chunks small enough to fit in a blender, removing the hard inner core if necessary (alternatively, if you have a juicer, you can use this to make pineapple juice).

Place the pineapple pieces in the blender with 2 tablespoons of water, and blend until its at a juice consistency.

Place a sieve on top of a bowl or large jug, and strain the pineapple juice to remove any big bits. This should result in about 200ml of pineapple juice.

Next, remove about a quarter of the rind from the orange with a vegetable peeler, and finely slice into thin strips. Juice the orange into a bowl. (About 80 to 100ml, depending on the size of your orange.)

If you don’t mind a bit of heat, de-seed and finely dice a small red chilli.

In a saucepan on a medium-high heat, add the pineapple juice, orange juice, 200ml water, orange rind, sugar and chilli.

Bring the mixture to the boil, and boil for 10 to 15 minutes until it starts to reduce and thicken up.

For the noodles:
In a zip-seal plastic bag, place the uncooked block of instant noodles (without the flavouring) and close it up, removing any air.

Take a kitchen hammer, or a rolling pin, and crush the noodles into tiny pieces in the bag.

Add the noodles to a dry pan on a medium-high heat, and keep stirring until they start to brown.

Add the teaspoon of Garlic, Ginger & Dhania paste, stir through the crunchy noodles, and cook for about a minute longer.

Reprinted with permission of JessKa’sKitchen. To see more recipes, click here.