Welcome to Just Cooking — a space dedicated to food that does not need to be complicated to be good. No fuss, no hard-to-find ingredients, no lengthy techniques borrowed from a restaurant kitchen. Just honest, everyday recipes that work.
Whether you’re cooking for yourself, your family, or whoever happens to be at the table, this column is your reminder that good food is mostly about care, not complexity.
For Heather, it started young. A curiosity that crept in early and never really left. Not as a profession, not as a performance, but as something quieter and more personal. A way to slow down after years of chasing deadlines as a journalist, shifting through research, and navigating the world of media and communications.
She is not a chef and she will be the first to tell you that. But she knows what it means to cook for comfort, to find rhythm in a recipe, and to feed people with genuine care.
For her, the kitchen has always been less about technique and more about therapy. A place to land when the rest of the world feels like a lot.
For the first recipe in this column, Heather is keeping it honest. No elaborate techniques, no long ingredient list. Just a bowl of wok-tossed noodles cooked in pork drippings, finished with oyster sauce, and topped with caramelised pork and spring onions.
This is the kind of recipe that becomes a quiet staple in your kitchen, the one you reach for on a weeknight when you are tired but still want something that actually tastes like effort.
The drippings do most of the work, the oyster sauce brings it all together, and the spring onions make it feel finished.
Simple. Fast. Deeply satisfying. Exactly what this column is about.
Pork Noodles with Oyster Sauce
⏱ 25 min 👥 3 servings ✓ Easy
Ingredients
• 300g noodles
• 300g pork (belly, shoulder, or any cut), sliced
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1-inch ginger, grated
• 3 spring onions, chopped
• 1 carrot, julienned (optional)
• 2 tbsp oil
• Salt & pepper
Method
1. Cook noodles according to packet instructions until just al dente. Drain and set aside.
2. Season pork with a pinch of salt and pepper.
3. Heat oil in a wok on high heat until smoking. Add pork and sear without stirring for 2 min until caramelised.
4. Add garlic and ginger, toss for 30 seconds.
5. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sugar. Toss pork to coat and cook 2 more min. Remove pork and set aside.
6. In the same wok with all the flavourful drippings, add carrot if using and stir fry 1 min.
7. Add noodles to the wok. Toss vigorously on high heat, letting them absorb all the pork flavour.
8. Add a splash of water if noodles stick. Season to taste.
9. Plate the noodles and top generously with the pork. Scatter spring onions over the top.
Heather’s Note
Do not skip the high heat, that’s where all the flavour happens. Let the pork sit undisturbed for those two minutes and you’ll get that caramelised crust that makes this dish. The drippings left in the wok are everything.
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