Shredded Pork and Pickled Mustard Noodle Soup 榨菜肉絲麵

This is one of my mother's classic noodle soup dishes. It is something you can find on most Chinese casual dining menus and it is great on a winter night. Everything can be pre-made and then you just boil the noodles and toss everything together. 

The key ingredient to this dish is the pickled mustard "tuber." Since I always refer to this vegetable with its chinese name, it had a hard time finding a good picture of this online. It should look like this and not this. You can find these at local Asian stores in the preserved vegetable aisle, as these are not refrigerated. They often have several flavors and I usually buy the spicy for some extra kick. 

Shredded Pork and Pickled Mustard Noodle Soup 榨菜肉絲麵

Ingredients

1/4 lb pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips

2 tbsp cooking wine

1 pinch of salt 

1 tbsp corn starch

3 cloves garlic

2 small packages of pickled mustard tuber

Noodles of your choice

2-3 cups of water or chicken broth

* If using water, add some salt and hondashi to flavor the soup

1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Directions

1. Marinate the pork strips with cooking wine, salt, and corn starch. 

2. Saute garlic until fragrant and cook pork until no longer pink. 

3. Add pickled mustard strips and saute until flavor is even throughout. 

4. Boil noodles.

5. In a stockpot, either use 1/2 proportion of water and 1/2 chicken broth to = 2-3 cups of soup or use all water and add salt and hondashi for some mild flavor in the soup. The amount of soup can vary based on preference and amount of noodles. Stir in ground white pepper.

6. Combine noodles with soup broth and top with pork and pickled mustard.  Serve when hot. 

The topping is easy to prepare and you can refrigerate the topping for up to 1 week. That way, you don't have an excuse when you need to prepare dinner in 15 minutes because you can boil noodles and mix up the soup broth in probably less than 15 minutes. 

Hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy some down time! 

Hot and Sour Noodles 酸辣麵

Asian noodles have a special place in my heart. Be it flat noodles with creamy sauce or thin rice noodles cooked with shiitake mushrooms and veggies. This recipe was recently shared with me by my mother and to top it all off we made homemade asian noodles, which were super al dente.

These noodles are what I would call a toss-it-all-together kind of noodle dish such as cold noodles with peanut sauce, dan dan mein, or ja jiang mein. Essentially these noodles are comprised of 3 components: al dente noodles, toppings, and a sauce. Once the toppings and sauce are placed on the noodles, you simply stir stir stir and voila delicious noodles in a jiffy.

Hot and Sour Noodles

Ingredients
Homemade noodles
250 grams of bread flour
250 grams of all purpose flour
230 grams of water
*Mix ingredients by hand or in stand mixer until a dough ball forms and gluten is activated (translation: there is a bounce back in the dough = chewy noodles). Let dough ball rest covered for 15 minutes. Flatten and cut, see this for details.

Toppings
1/2 lb ground pork
2 tbsp garlic or more
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cucumber, cored, peeled and julienned
2-3 tsp sugar or 3 small pieces of rock sugar

Noodle Sauce
2 teaspoon soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoon chili oil
2 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1 1/2 sesame oil
1 tbsp cilantro

Directions
1. Saute garlic until fragrant, but do not burn. Add ground pork and saute.

2. Add soy sauce and rock sugar. If sauce is too salty, add some water. Cook ground pork completely. Set aside.

3. Boil salted water and cook noodles to al dente texture.

4. In a separate sauce pan, add all noodle sauce ingredients and a few tablespoons of previously prepared ground pork. If necessary, add salt and sugar to taste. Add remaining pork for desired meat-to-noodle ratio.

5. Add cooked noodles into the noodle sauce ingredients and toss with cucumbers. Serve with cilantro and additional minced garlic for garnishes.

This is one incredibly satisfying and delicious noodle dish that is easily prepared in advance for any meal. Of course you don't need to make homemade noodles, but I definitely have a bias towards freshly made noodles for these toss-it-all-together noodle dishes. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Soba Noodles in Japanese Broth

Have you ever looked at the NYTimes Recipes for Health pages and thought, "I should probably eat something like that for dinner." I had one of those moments a few months ago and had the foresight to jot down this recipe before I lost it in my long list of things I want to make. This is likely going to be the simplest dinner that I will make this week. It was so simple I even had time to make Momofuku Shrimp Spring Rolls, which were also a hit.

Soba Noodles in Broth with Sweet Potato, Cabbage, and Oyster Mushrooms
Serves four as a main dish, six as a starter.

Ingredients
6 cups kombu dashi, chicken stock or vegetable stock 
6 ounces Japanese soba noodles, cooked and tossed with 1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes (about 3/4 pound), peeled and sliced about 1/4 inch thick (cut in half lengthwise first if fat)
2 cups shredded cabbage
10-12 oyster mushrooms, rinsed
2 tablespoons minced chives
Salt to taste

Directions
1. Bring the stock to a simmer. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding salt if desired. Add the sweet potatoes and cabbage, and simmer 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

2. If the noodles have been refrigerated, warm them by placing them in a strainer and dipping the strainer into the simmering broth. Then distribute the noodles among four to six soup bowls. Add the spinach to the stock. Cover, and turn off the heat. Leave for three minutes. Ladle the soup into the bowls, taking care to distribute the vegetables evenly. Sprinkle the chives over each serving, and serve.

For something that is healthy, it was quite delicious and easy to make. I will definitely be making this one again during the cold winter months when only a bowl of hot soup can warm you up. 

Have a great Monday everyone! 

Tom Yum Goong

There is a restaurant in Dallas, TX called Royal Thai. I wish I could transplant this restaurant to NC because they have the best Tom Yum Goong that I've ever tasted. This is a spicy, sour soup that can have chicken, shrimp, and often mushrooms. My favorite way to eat this soup is to turn it into a noodle soup by ordering steamed rice noodles on the side.

We recently made a shrimp dish, which left us a generous portion of shrimp heads and tails. The Husband suggested making a shrimp broth, which I learned just means boiling something (i.e., meat, vegetable) in water whereas a stock is where you may add onions, garlic, bay leaves, and other herbs.

So, I let the shrimp parts boil for approximately 45 minutes in water and then strained the broth to make my Tom Yum Goong. I had to improvise this recipe a bit because I didn't have the exact amount of shrimp and I cannot find kaffir lime leaves here. I also bought an additional pound of shrimp aside from the leftover heads that I used to make the shrimp broth.

Tom Yum Goong

Ingredients

500 g (1 lb) medium-sized raw prawns

1 tbsp oil

2 quarts of water * I substituted this with the shrimp broth

2 tbsp red curry paste

2 tbsp tamarind concentrate

2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp chopped red chilies, optional

4 kaffir lime leaves, shredded ** or a lot more lime juice if you can't find it

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp lime juice **

2 tsp soft brown sugar

1/4 cup fresh coriander leaves * couldn't find this either so skipped

Rice noodles, optional to make noodle soup
Your choice of mushrooms

Directions

1. Remove shrimp shell and heads. Devein shrimp and set aside.

2. Heat oil in wok or pan. Add the shrimp shells and heads and cook over medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes until shells and heads are a deep orange. Then turn heat to high.

3. Gradually add 1 cup of shrimp broth/water and the curry paste to the wok. Boil for 5 minutes, until reduced slightly. Add the remaining water and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain and reserve the soup. Discard shrimp heads and shells. Return the soup to the wok. 

4. Add the tamarind concentrate, turmeric, chilies, and lime leaves and bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Add the peeled, deveined shrimp and cook until they are pink, but not overdone.

5. Stir in the fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar. Add cooked rice noodles if desired. Sprinkle with coriander  (or cilantro) leaves just before serving. 

I've tried making this soup once before based on a Tyler Florence recipe, which used galanga and lemongrass. However, that recipe was not nearly as flavorful as this one. I think this is related to the red curry paste and some of the other seasonings. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to Royal Thai, but at least I can have a quick fix before our next trip back to DFW!

Have a restful weekend and some good eats!

Pesto alla Trapanese

This recipe comes directly from the American's Test Kitchen, which The Husband started recording recently and I suddenly have become addicted to.

We love basil pesto and since we grew our own last year we ate a lot of it and shared with many friends. But, we're trying to make our stash last through the cold months and this pesto recipe looked just as flavorful. This pesto is based on grape tomatoes, basil, garlic, and toasted almonds. Thought of as a peasant dish, it is supposed to thinly coat the pasta noodles and is not a heavy-handed sauce.

I would recommend not liquifying the pesto, which is what happened to mine. I imagine the pesto having more bits of almonds and visible pieces of basil. Test it out and see what works for you.

So incredibly easy! You can have dinner ready in less than 30 minutes. This recipe is also relatively healthy with minimal olive oil and cheese.

Bon appetite!

Edit: Here is the recipe since the website requires sign in.

Ingredients: 

1/4 cup slivered almonds, without skin

12 oz cherry or grape tomatoes (2 1/2 cups)

1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves

1 medium garlic clove, minced

1 small pepperoncini (hot peppers in vinegar) - stemmed, seeded, minced (optional)

Salt

Pinch red pepper flakes (optional) 

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound pasta, linguine or spaghetti

1 oz Parmesan cheese, grated (1/2 cup), plus extra for serving

Directions: Just food processor or blend all ingredients and mix with pasta. Reserve some pasta water in case the sauce is too thick.

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

My Ah-ma, taiwanese for "grandmother," is one of the best cooks that I rarely get to enjoy. But since we're making a long-waited trip to Taiwan in 2011, I decided to dedicate this post to her. 


Edit: Given that my sister claims that this recipe is a family secret, our family recipe has been removed. Sorry! Should have asked about internal family copyright laws. ;) 


But, you can find a great recipe here. 

Happy slurping!