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!