Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (38 page)

In southern China, noodles are often eaten at lunchtime, perhaps in a small restaurant near a place of work, or for a quick and casual meal at home, or a late-night snack. When I was a student at Sichuan University, I used to eat noodles for lunch almost every day at Mr. Xie’s legendary noodle shop; later, living in Hunan, I ate soupy rice noodles for breakfast, with pickled chilli relish on the side. And “long-life noodles,” so-called because of their auspicious length, are a traditional birthday food across China.

Many Chinese noodle dishes, in common with Italian pastas, make fantastic last-minute meals. If you keep some dried noodles and a few basic seasonings in your larder, and some spring onions in your refrigerator, you’ll be able to rustle up several of the recipes in this chapter in only about 15 minutes. And although some of the recipes may look startlingly simple, I hope you’ll find the flavors extraordinary.

In restaurants, fresh wheat or rice noodles are most commonly served, while some specializt shops offer buckwheat noodles that are made from scratch on the spot. At home, dried noodles are the first recourse of the busy cook in search of almost instant sustenance. Most Chinese supermarkets sell a variety of dried noodles made with wheat, rice, or buckwheat, as well as transparent pastas made from sweet potato and mung bean starch, among others; many also keep fresh rice or wheat noodles in the refrigerator. I tend to keep in stock dried noodles made both from wheat flour and from a mixture of wheat and buckwheat flours, as well as dried bean thread noodles. For making noodle soups, I like to keep packages of home-made stock in my freezer, but you can use canned or powdered stock if you prefer (just take care with seasoning if you are using a ready-made stock that is already salty).

If you don’t eat wheat, do use rice noodles instead of wheat noodles in these recipes. Fresh rice noodles simply need a quick blanching to heat them up; dried rice noodles should be soaked in hot water until supple before using.

In China, “dry” noodles—that is, noodles that are not served in a broth—are almost invariably served with a soup, to refresh the palate. This soup might be as simple as a bowl of stock with a few spring onion slices, or a broth with wisps of beaten egg or tender tofu with strands of seaweed. One Chinese tradition I enjoy is to use the silky water used for cooking noodles (
mian tang
) as a soup, perhaps with a little sliced spring onion and a tiny slug of sesame oil. Chinese noodles for “dry” noodle dishes are often rinsed after cooking, to get rid of any starchiness that will make them stick together.

Soup noodles are the perfect one-dish meal, with their filling, starchy staple, refreshing broth, delicious seasonings, and whatever you like to add in the way of meat, fish, tofu or vegetables as a topping.

SPICY BUCKWHEAT NOODLES (WITH OR WITHOUT CHICKEN)
SUAN LA QIAO MIAN 酸辣蕎麵

Buckwheat is mainly grown in cold, mountainous areas, especially in northern China. In Sichuan, where the bitter or Tartary variety is favored, it is usually eaten in the form of noodles. This recipe is one of my old favorites and was taught to me by Liu Shaokun, who runs a small pickling and preserving factory at his restaurant on the outskirts of Chengdu. His storerooms contain ranks of waist-high pickle jars, some filled with scarlet pickled chillies, others with dark salted mustards, still others lit up with a glorious paste made from pickled chillies, rapeseed (canola) oil and salt. Liu Shaokun’s restaurant specializes in old-fashioned rustic cooking, including his own wind-dried winter sausages, steamed and served with a dried chilli dip; braised turtle with radishes; chicken or fish with pickled vegetables; twice-cooked pork with salted greens; and old-fashioned soups of alfalfa leaves and other greens boiled in rice cooking water.

This dish is usually served cold, but will also taste good hot if you can’t wait that long. It serves two people as a snack, or more as part of a spread of cold dishes.

5½ oz (160g) dried buckwheat noodles

A little cooking oil

1 tbsp light or tamari soy sauce

2 tbsp Chinkiang vinegar

½ tsp sugar

Salt, to taste

4 tbsp chilli oil (with its sediment, if desired)

1–2 tsp finely chopped garlic, to taste

3 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

A little cold, cooked chicken meat, torn into shreds (optional)

2 tsp finely chopped fresh red chilli, plus a few chilli slices to serve

Bring a pan of water to a boil and cook the noodles to your liking. Rinse in cold water and shake dry. If you want to eat the noodles cold, sprinkle a little plain oil on them and mix well with chopsticks, before spreading the noodles out to cool (the oil will stop them from sticking together).

Place the noodles in a deep bowl and add all the other ingredients, except the chilli slices. Mix well, turn on to a serving dish and top with the chicken shreds (if using) and the sliced chillies.

MRS. YU’S SWEET AND SPICY COLD NOODLES
YU LAO SHI LIANG MIAN 余老師涼麵

When I was a student at Sichuan University, I took private classes in Chinese with a teacher named Yu Weiqin. With my limited vocabulary of the time, I struggled to keep up with our fascinating discussions about sexual politics and social mores in China, but revelled in the lunches and dinners she cooked for me from time to time, because Teacher Yu is a marvellous cook. Sometimes she would conjure up a bowlful of fried rice studded with morsels of her homemade wind-dried sausage; sometimes she would invite my roommate and me for supper and whip up a dozen dishes. This was one of her regular offerings, cold noodles and beansprouts tossed with an improbable array of seasonings.

You can make this with any cold noodles, but I prefer the kind Teacher Yu used to use: simple Chinese flour-and-water noodles, which you can buy fresh or dried from Chinese supermarkets. You can add shredded chicken if you wish (it’s a great use for leftovers), or a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds. The noodles should be cooled and dried before use, so you need to start a couple of hours in advance of your meal.

This makes enough to serve two people as an appetizer or a snack on its own, or more if served alongside other dishes as part of a Chinese meal.

5 oz (150g) beansprouts

7 oz (200g) dried noodles, or 11 oz (300g) fresh noodles

A little cooking oil

2 tbsp light soy sauce or tamari

2 tsp Chinkiang vinegar

2 tbsp runny sesame paste (optional)

3 tsp sugar

2 tsp finely chopped garlic

¼ tsp ground roasted Sichuan pepper

2 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

2–4 tbsp chilli oil, with its sediment, to taste

½ tsp sesame oil

1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Some leftover chicken meat, shredded (optional)

Bring a large panful of water to a boil over a high flame. When boiling, plunge in the beansprouts and blanch for a minute or so, until barely cooked and still a bit crisp. Remove the beansprouts to a colander with a slotted spoon and cool quickly under the cold tap. Shake dry.

Cook the noodles in the boiling water. When they are done, turn them into a colander and rinse under the cold tap. Shake out as much water as possible. Pour over ½–1 tsp cooking oil and mix it in thoroughly with clean hands or chopsticks: this helps prevent the noodles from sticking together. Then spread them out on a tray in a well-ventilated place for an hour or two to dry. (Some people use an electric fan to dry the noodles more quickly and effectively.)

Place the noodles in a serving bowl with the beansprouts. Just before serving, add all the other ingredients and top with the chicken, if using. Mix well with a pair of chopsticks before eating.

HO FUN RICE NOODLES WITH MUSHROOMS
GAN CHAO SU HE
乾炒素河

This is a vegetarian version of a noodle dish that was a staple of the
dai pai dong
street stalls, once a mainstay of Hong Kong life and now a dying breed. The original dish,
gan chao niu he
, is made with beef, but this mushroom variation is also delicious. Eat it as a main dish at lunchtime, or serve it with other dishes as part of a Chinese meal. The cooking method is based on one I learned at Kin’s Kitchen in Hong Kong, with the kind permission of restaurant owner Lau Kin Wai. For the original beef recipe, see variation, right.

This serves three as a main dish, or six with other dishes as part of a Chinese meal.

4 dried shiitake mushrooms

5 oz (150g) white mushrooms, or others of your choice

3 spring onions

1 lb (450g) fresh
ho fun
rice noodles

4 tbsp cooking oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

4 tsp light soy sauce

½ tsp dark soy sauce

Salt

7 oz (200g) beansprouts

Ground white pepper

Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water from the kettle for at least 30 minutes. Then slice off and discard the stems and slice the caps. Slice the mushrooms very thin. Trim the spring onions and separate the green and white parts. Smack the whites with the side of a cleaver or a rolling pin to loosen the fibers. Cut the greens into two or three sections, then lengthways into slivers. Cover the noodles in warm water, leave for a minute or so, then use your fingers to separate them gently (some will break: don’t worry). Shake dry in a colander.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a seasoned wok over a high flame, add the garlic and shiitake and stir-fry briefly until you can smell the garlic. Then add the other mushrooms and stir-fry over a medium heat until just cooked, seasoning with 2 tsp of the light soy sauce and ¼ tsp of the dark soy sauce, with salt to taste. Remove from the wok and set aside. Return the wok to a high heat with another 1 tbsp oil, add the beansprouts and stir-fry until hot but still crisp. Set aside.

Return the wok to a high heat with 1 tbsp oil and the spring onion whites and sizzle briefly until you can smell their fragrance. Add the noodles and stir-fry until hot, adding the remaining light and dark soy sauces, with a couple of pinches of ground white pepper. Add the mushrooms and beansprouts and stir-fry until all is piping hot and smells delicious, seasoning with a little salt if you need it. Finally, add the spring onion greens, stir a few times and serve.

VARIATION

Ho fun rice noodles with beef
Instead of the mushrooms and garlic in the recipe above, use 7 oz (200g) trimmed steak, cut into thin, bite-sized pieces. Place the beef in a bowl, add ½ tsp sugar, ¼ tsp salt, ½ tsp dark soy sauce, 1 tsp light soy sauce, ¾ tsp potato flour and 2 tsp cold water and mix well. Follow the recipe, but instead of stir-frying the fresh mushrooms, stir-fry the beef until nearly cooked; set aside. Fry the beansprouts as above. Finally, stir-fry the noodles, adding the beef instead of the mushrooms. If you wish, stir in a handful of Chinese yellow chives, cut into sections, with the spring onion greens.