Ants crawling up a tree

Yes, that's the literal translation of this Chinese dish. The noodles are trees and the bits of meat are the ants! It was always one of my favorites growing up because it had a silly name and it tasted good!

Anyway, this is a super easy dish to make that I did because I soaked extra bean thread noodles and defrosted extra ground turkey from the eggrolls I made the other day.

You can use any ground meat, I personally prefer pork, turkey or chicken and tend to stay away from beef, although that could work too. You can also add all sorts of veggies/garnishes if you want, along with other seasonings to make variations of it. I made the simplest version below:


Ingredients:
- 1 packet of mung bean thread noodles soaked in water until softened (20 mins)
- 3 oz of ground pork, turkey or chicken
- 1 Tbsp oil
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce (this should actually be to taste and is an estimation)
- water as needed (~1/4 - 1/2 cup)
Optional additions/garnishes:
- scallions
- sesame
- peas
- shredded napa cabbage and/or carrots
- minced garlic
- sugar
- whatever you feel like tossing in
- Sacha sauce (replace half of the soy sauce with this to give it a bit of heat and a unique flavor)


Directions:
- Heat up the wok until it's very hot and then add the oil
- Add the ground meat and half of the soy sauce and use a spatula to cook and break up the meat until mostly cooked
- Put in the noodles, the rest of the soy sauce, and a bit of water
- Toss/Mix the noodles and meat until the the water is absorbed by the noodles. If more water is needed to fully cook the noodles, add it as needed.

Easy peasy!