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! 

Dining In: Durham, NC - Broad Street Cafe

I would consider Durham a great place for casual dining. Dotted throughout the city are great little places that you can pop in and have a great meal with friends over beers. I have no idea what took us so long to head over to Broad Street Cafe, especially since it's so close to Duke, but we are definitely regretting not finding this gem earlier.

Assorted wings: Sweet Chili, Buffalo, and BBQ

The Mediterranean Pizza.

Shrimp and Applewood Bacon with Pesto Pizza. 

The wings were decent, but you don't come here for the wings. Rather, pizzas at Broad Street are wonderful. Chewy, light crust and flavorful toppings served piping hot from their brick oven. They have so many pizza options that you can head there several times without exhausting the list. 

The Sister had the star of the show, which is unfortunately not pictured here because we devoured it too quickly. She had the lamb burger, which was super flavorful, tender, and juicy. If you are in search of a good (yet less gamey) lamb burger in the area, I would suggest you try this out. I will definitely be heading back for that dish and the pizzas. 

Which restaurants would you like to try in the Triangle, but just haven't gotten to yet? 

Hope you have a great (hump) day!  

Paper Wrapped Cake

Ever walk into your neighborhood Asian bakery and catch a whiff of that mildly sweet, eggy sponge cake that's often wrapped in paper like pretty little bouquets? There are only 2 locations (to my knowledge) that make these cakes in the Triangle area, one of which is a far drive and another of which is not my favorite place to shop.

The Husband always asks, "Oh, can we get one of these?" every time we're at one of these 2 locations. The look on his face when he eats these cakes with whipped cream and strawberries just tugs at my heart strings every time. So, I thought, "What's made in a bakery, surely can be made at home. Right?"

The key to these cakes is the light, fluffy texture and slightly sweet, eggy flavor. Anything that involves baking and detailed instructions tends to freak me out. But, what the heck... life's too short to live in fear of flat, soggy sponge cake. So, I gave it my best shot. The original recipe can be found here and while the measurements are not US friendly, they are easily decoded with any measurement converter.

Paper Wrapped Cake
Makes 5 medium or 6 small cakes

Ingredients
5 eggs, whites and yolks separated
50 grams (1.76 oz) butter, melted
60 ml milk
100 grams cake flour
80 grams sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 355 F. (I actually had the oven at 180 F for the first 4 minutes of baking until I realized that the original recipe was 180 C. This conversion actually matters!)

2. Combine melted butter with milk. Sift cake flour into butter and milk and mix well. (It might look kind of like a white glob. This is normal.).

3. Whisk egg yolks. Add egg yolks and vanilla extract to cake flour, butter, and milk mixture. Whisk until smooth.

4. Use an electric hand mixer or stand mixer to whisk egg whites for 3 minutes on high. Add cream of tartar and mix 1 minute more. Add sugar and whisk until egg whites form stiff peaks.

5. Fold egg white mixture in thirds into cake flour mixture with a rubber spatula just until all ingredients are combined. Do not stir or mix otherwise you will deflate the batter.

6. Line oven-safe mugs or tall cake cups (like these) with baking paper (not waxed paper). You want the paper to be higher than the edge of the mug in case the batter rises.

7. Pour batter into the lined mugs. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check centers with a toothpick and if clean, remove from heat.

8. Allow the cakes to cool in the mugs for 1-2 minutes. Then remove and let cool on a wire rack.

Don't let the number of steps fool you. This is not hard to make and in fact it is super easy as long as you follow the directions. While we were waiting the (excruciating) long 25 minutes for the cakes to bake, we kept wondering whether they would be flat, dense cakey messes at the bottom of our mugs. But we were pleasantly surprised and devoured 3 of them before they completely cooled.

Hope you try these and prove to yourself that you (too) can bake delicious Asian pastries at home.

Have a fabulous Monday!