Baingan bharta aur Baajre ka rotla, Sarson da saag aur Makki ki roti, Oondhiyu, Gajar ka halwa, Rasamalai, Gulab Jaamun, Thoran, and to top it all; Garma garam chai and freshly brewed coffee for the hot beverage aficionados! The list of comfort food in winters is endless and never-ending. These delicacies are relished by one and all. Although these lip-smacking dishes satiate our palates they are tedious to prepare.

Although to save time and satiate my hunger pangs, instant noodles have always saved the day somehow, I wasn’t content with the idea. My craving for comfort food reminded me of a soup recipe I had watched on TLC and decided to make a version of my own – vegetable broth with steamed flat rice noodles and a mildly spicy yet, sharp thick sauce to complement the flavour.

I started by steaming the flat rice noodles in hot boiling water; then, I roughly chopped some cabbage, onions, and carrots; whereas, the capsicum and red-yellow bell peppers were diced and the fresh garlic minced. I then proceeded to drain the water from the noodles; set them aside to cool, and in the same boiling hot water, added the roughly chopped cabbage, onion and carrot so as to get some of their flavor into the water which was the vegetable broth in the making. Following that, I soaked the veggies for around ten minutes and strained the vegetables, thereby collecting the left-over vegetable stock. And, lo! The broth was ready.


The veggies i.e. the cabbage, onions and carrots were, by this time partially cooked. After that, I went on to put 2 tbsp of oil, the freshly minced garlic, little tomato ketchup, some red chilli sauce and red chilli paste (Recipe: soak dry red chilies in warm water for thirty minutes and blend with salt and some vinegar to make a fine paste or you may opt for some good, ole’ Schezwan chutney), some drops of dark soy sauce, a pinch of sugar and salt as per taste. Mixing everything together, I cooked it for five minutes on medium flame and then set it aside: the sauce was ready.

In the same pan, I added 2 tsp of this same sauce, put in the diced vegetables and even the partially cooked vegetables and stir fried it for two minutes on high flame. Now, the vegetables were ready, too!

Plating is an art. To assemble these varied components, I suggest you take a hollow dish, put the stir fried vegetables on one side and the steamed flat noodles on another and then pour the vegetable broth on top. Garnish it with finely some chopped coriander leaves and a small spoonful of the sauce.


The best part of this dish is that you need not keep an exact measure of all the ingredients as the quantity can be customized according to one’s taste and preferences. For those of us who like our food to be a little hatke, little extra noodles for an unexpected dinner mate, some extra sauce to give it a tinge of spiciness and some extra vegetables to up the nutritional content can also be added. You can either increase or decrease the quantity of any ingredient as you fancy but do not leave any ingredient out. My fellow omnivores, you can use chicken stock instead of vegetable broth and you can replace stir-fried vegetables with shredded chicken.

This dish will activate all your taste-buds. I certainly think of it as a DIY dish once your noodles, broth, sauce and veggies are ready. Comfort food does not necessarily have to be something with high sugar and carbohydrate content. It can be healthy too. The idea of comfort food is to make you feel better. A gloomy day is sure to appear cheerful after devouring this soupy dish!