Cures for a Sore Noodle

I think this soup's name translates to "5 ingredient noodle soup"

It’s a cold, grey, smoggy Saturday in the cold winter of Nanjing. I’m hung over from drinking too many Tsingtaos the night before. I’ve no desire to cook and even less desire for the only western food nearby: McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, or KFC. Next door steam rises from several basin sized bowls and people huddle in their puffy winter gear as they slurp up the noodles in a flurry of motion with spoons and chopsticks. I point to the first option on the menu and hope for the best.

What I get is a rich broth in which slices of sweet sausage, strips of pork, pickled cabbage, bok choi, a pound of noodles, and a poached egg float and bob. It takes me half an hour to finish and I'm full for two days. The hangover is gone and I feel like I could leap from tower block roof to tower block roof.



a man gets his soup on at a local shop

That and many subsequent bowls of a variety of noodles were some of my favourite dishes in my year and a half in Nanjing, China. There were fast food chains that served big bowls of spicy beef noodles with few ingredients, but depth of flavour and never-ending noodles. Most places (like above) served simple bowlfuls on plastic tables and tiny stools set up in alleys. Muslim restaurants served beef or mutton with handmade noodles and broth containing spices like cinnamon and anise. Even in summer, there's something about a bowl of noodles that is rejuvenating. The occasional food poisoning was worth the gamble.

I was happy to discover that my new apartment in Dublin was a few blocks from “Chinatown” and Charming Noodles seemed to fit the bill when I woke up on a cold, grey morning craving noodles. The spicy beef noodles and the noodles with pork and pickled cabbage were as good as any I’d had in China, but with a painful 10 euro price tag. So I set out to make my own, knowing that my usual attempts to make Chinese food usually failed.

successful experiment!

Even though I didn't have beef noodles as often as the others in China, I decided it was the one I might be able to do the best as it involves braising beef for hours and we all know not much goes wrong when you combine beef, liquid, a low cooking temperature, and time. As with many old, popular foods, there are a gagillion recipes for this soup ranging from “put a stock cube in boiling water, add soy sauce, chili, and noodles” to recipes that take all day and involve ingredients that are only found on special trees in the middle of nowhere. I hate having to brown things, cook things in batches, and strain liquid, so I just cobbled together my own version and made it a one Dutch oven pot deal.  Most of my inspiration came from this site:   http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/01/taiwan-eats-taiwanese-beef-noodle-soup-recipe.html

The result of these ingredients together are amazing. I would recommend sieving out the peppercorns as they can be a spicy, tongue-numbing bite when you reach the bottom. But some people like that kind of thing. Put all the following in a pot and cook in a low oven (150 degrees) and cook for 2-3 hours.

·      

300-500 grams of beef (I’ve used both stewing beef and boneless ribs. I prefer the latter.)

·         3 large slices of ginger

·         3 cloves of garlic, chopped

·         2 dried red chillies

·         1TB sugar

·         2TB chili bean paste

·         ½ cup rice wine

·         ½ TB Szechuan peppercorns

·         1 star anise

·         ¼  cup dark soy sauce

·         ¼ cups light soy sauce

·         5 cups of water

·         1 beef bouillon cube (optional)

Cook noodles separately. Any noodles work: thin, thick, egg, rice, flour. Whatever floats your soup.

Put noodles in a bowl, top with uncooked bok choy, green onions, sprouts (optional) and ladle the soup on top. Slurp slurp to heaven.

Another soup available in most neighbourhood restaurants is wonton soup. I often passed on this dish because the bowls were small, the broth was bland and the wontons only had a small bit of love stuffed inside. Granted, the tables are full of soy sauce, chilli sauces, and condiments to put in the soup, and the tab is only a few cents. But I thought I could make a bastardized version that would leave me more sated (and likely full of more calories).

When I look for recipes, I often look at about a dozen and choose the ingredients they mostly have in common and then throw those things together without really measuring. This is more due to being too lazy to haul out the measuring spoons rather than creative spontaneity. For this experiment, I also consulted the master cyber teacher, youtube to see how to fold those square wrappers.

Filling:
150 grams of pork
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
piece of ginger, minced
3-4 spring onions, minced
1TB soy sauce
1TB rice wine
salt

For the soup:
5 cups of chicken broth
1TB sesame oil
1TB soy sauce
1TB rice wine
1TB yellow miso paste
bok choi
bean sprouts
carrot ribbons

Cook the wontons for 2-3
minutes in the broth.
Add
vegetables.

big spoonfuls of yum

This was a very satisfying bowl of soup though I think the wonton filling could have used more flavour and a little zing. The wontons took me ages to fold and so was much more labour intensive than the beef soup. The next time I wake up on a foggy day with a foggy brain and a craving for a liquid cure, I will definitely choose the beef noodles.