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Stir fried Cats Ear Noodle

by | Sep 13, 2010

Stir fried Cats Ear Noodle

stir fry cats ear noodle

I can imagine what you are thinking. Oh no, an Eastern person has cooked her cat! Don’t worry, our cat Popo still has his ears. Cat’s ears noodles is an interesting dish with an interesting story behind it.

During the Qing Dynasty, one day the Qianlong Emperor dressed himself as an ordinary person and travelled to West Lake, Hangzhou. He hired a ship and travelled along the West Lake.

Suddenly the weather turned really horrible. It was raining really heavily so they, it’s raining heavily, so they had to stop of the lake until the weather improved and they could continue their journey. However the rain continued and the emperor felt really hungry so he asked the old boatman for some food to eat.

The old boatman told him: “I have some flour but I don’t have a rolling pin to make noodles for you”. When they didn’t know what to do the boatman’s daughter, who was holding a pretty little kitten in her arms, told the boatman “it’s ok that we don’t have a rolling pin, I can use my hands to make noodles”. After she had finished making the noodles, the old old boatman cooked these noodles and mixed it with some sauce and gave Qianlong a bowl of noodle to eat. Qianlong had a bite of the noodle and was surprise about how tasty this noodle was. So he asked the boatman’s daughter for the name of the dish and she answed “Cat’s ears” due to the shape looking a bit like a cat’s ear). Afterwards the Qianlong Emperor went back to his palace and he hired the boatman’s daughter to be his chef and gave her and her family a lot of money and jewellery.

There are many ways to make cat’s ear noodle. I know some people like to make cat’s ear noodle soup or just stir-fry with some dried shitake mushroom and other vegetables. But today I use broad beans and prawn to cook with this cat’s ear noodle because I love broad beans with prawn and stir-fry broad beans with prawn is also another childhood dish for me. I hope you like my story today but also my recipe.

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

 

stir fry cats ear noodle
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Stir fried Cats Ear Noodle

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Ingredients for cat's ear noodle

  • 1.5 cup bread flour
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup water

Ingredients for stir-fry cat's ear noodle

  • 1 cup broad beans
  • 250 g baby corn cut into small dices
  • 500 g prawn
  • 1 small carrot diced into 0.5cm squares
  • 2 cloves garlic chop finely
  • 2 thin slice ginger chop finely
  • 1 chili remove seeds and chop finely

Seasonings for stir-fry cat’s ear noodle

  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 cup water

Instructions

Procedures for cat’s ear noodle

  1. Mix all of the ingredients together and use your hands to knead the dough until it’s nice and smooth.
  2. Cover the dough with cling film and leave it for 20 minutes.
  3. After 20 minutes, cut the dough into 3 portions and use a rolling pin to flatten each portion individually, Use a knife to cut it into small dices.
  4. Use your thumb to press down the small dices of dough individually first and then gently push forward. You will see the dough starts curling like a shell.
  5. Boil half a pot of water to cook the noodle. Pour a cup of cold water in the pot when it’s boiling. Repeat this procedure twice and when the noodle is floating on top of the water it’s cooked. Place the noodle into a big bowl and toss with some oil or sesame oil and leave it on aside. It’s now ready to serve.

Procedure for stir-fry cat’s ear noodle

  1. Heat up one tablespoon oil in a wok set to full gas power and stir-fry the garlic, ginger and chilli first until you smell they have cooked. This will take around 10-20 seconds.
  2. Add broad bean and carrot into the wok and stir-fry for 1 minute. Pour water into wok and bring it to the boil.
  3. Once the water is boiling turn the gas power to the lowest temperature and simmer for 5 minutes.
  4. Add all the seasonings into the wok and mix evenly. Place cat’s ear noodle into the wok and stir-fry together for 5 minutes.
  5. Add the prawns to the noodles and continue to stir-fry until the prawns have cooked.

 

Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

by | Sep 8, 2010

Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

smoked duck noodle soup

In Taiwan, Taiwanese people will use smoked duck’s bone to make a special stock for noodle soup and duck meat for this smoked duck noodle soup. I always remember when I went to restaurants to have Peking duck (Beijing roast duck) with my family and my mother always asked for the bone to take home after dinner. She will use this duck bone to make stock and make rice soup in the morning for us as breakfast. The fragrance and the taste of that rice soup is so amazing. You can feel every inch of your body is awake after the first sip of the rice soup. Ah, such a wonderful memory. Now my mother is not in the UK so I have had to learn to cook this for my husband and I. I decided to cook this smoked duck noodle for us in our day off for our brunch but ever since I cooked it Chris has been pining for more.

I believe a good noodle soup or rice soup can enrich and bless your body even your mind. So here is my recipe for a delicious smoked duck noodle soup

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: https://chrisradleyphotography.com

 

smoked duck noodle soup
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Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 4 duck legs
  • 2 portions noodles

Seasonings

  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 ltr water
  • 2 spring onions
  • 3 slices ginger
  • 5 cm cinnamon stick
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 piece dried tangerine peel
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar

Marinade for duck legs

  • 1 tbsp Sichuan pepper
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine

Ingredients for smoking duck legs

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 2 bags teabags or tea leaf
  • 2 star anise

Instructions

  1. Marinade duck legs with the marinade seasonings for 1 hour.
  2. Heat up 2 tablespoon of oil in a sauce pan. Stir-fry the spring onion, ginger, all the spices.
  3. Pour the water, soy sauce, brown sugar into procedure 2 and boil it.
  4. Put duck legs into procedure 3 after it boiled and bring it to boil again. After boil turn the gas power to the lowest gas power and simmer for 45 minutes. Keep the sauce for stock later.
  5. Line the inside of a large roasting pan with foil and spread with ingredients for smoke the duck. Place a rack (cooling racks work well) inside the roasting pan. Place the duck legs on top of the rack (skin side down) and cover with tin foil to trap the smoke. Put the roasting pan on centre of the burner and heat up the roasting pan with moderate heat and after 2~3 minutes you will notice smoke coming out. Cook for a further 10 minutes. Brush some sesame oil on top of the duck legs after smoking.
  6. De-bone 2 duck legs and use the bones along with the sauce from Step 4 to make the stock. Put everything in to a small sized stock pot and simmer for 1 hour.
  7. Cook the noodle and place it in a bowl, pour some stock from procedure 6 and place the duck legs and duck meat on top with some spring onion and coriander as garnish.

 

Wuxi Ribs

by | Sep 4, 2010

Wuxi Ribs

wuxi ribs

A long time ago I watched a Taiwanese cooking show which taught people how to cook Wuxi Ribs. This dish needs to simmer for a couple of hours to make the meat on the ribs really tender. For most people, I know spending a couple hours preparing a dish is a long time but this dish is so tasty that I ensure you it’s worth your time.

This dish has a really nice story behind it. During the Song Dynasty, a homeless monk travelled to Wuxi. He asked some people for food but no-one was willing to give him some food behind he was both dirty and smelly. Finally a restaurant owner came out and gave him some meat to eat.

The monk wolfed down the meat but still felt hungry so he asked the restaurant owner if he could have some more food. The owner gave him a little more meat which the monk again wolfed down but he was still hungry and asked for more. The owner got a little angry and shouted at the monk “What shall I sell the customers tomorrow if you eat all of my meat?” The old monk told him “you can sell the bones tomorrow”.

The monk then threw pieces of his hand fan into the pot and an amazing smell came out of the pot. Back in those days fans were often made of leaves and the smell of the meat could be smelt throughout the city. Everybody in Wuxi city wanted to buy the ribs from that restaurant and the restaurant owner then realized that the monk is not just an ordinary monk, but he is the Buddha Ji Gong. Ji Gong is a famous Buddhist character in Chinese folk stories.

Here is the recipe for Wuxi Ribs. Although we don’t have Ji Gong’s hand fan we can control the heat and seasoning appropriately.

Credit: All photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

 

wuxi ribs
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Wuxi Ribs

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours
Servings 3 people

Ingredients

  • 1 kg pork ribs
  • 10 spring onions cut in half
  • 4 slices ginger
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce for marinading the ribs
  • 1 cup Shaoxing rice wine
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp Chinese dark vinegar
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 clove
  • 1/4 tsp pepper powder
  • 2 pinches five spice powder
  • 1 tbsp ketchup
  • 2 tbsp brown or rock sugar
  • water

Instructions

  1. Marinade ribs with 2 tablespoons soy sauce, heat up 2 cups of oil in the wok with full gas power. Fry the ribs in 180C Oil for 2 minutes and place it on a plate. This procedure is for colouring the ribs.
  2. Heat up 1 tablespoon of oil and stir-fry the spring onion and, ginger until the fragrance comes out.
  3. Place the spring onion and ginger into a stock pot and place     ribs on top of the spring onion. Add all the spice, Shaoshing rice wine, soy sauce, dark vinegar and water (Water to slightly cover the ribs) into the stock pot and use full gas power to boil everything at first. Once it has boiled turn reduce the temperate to the lowest gas heat and simmer for 1.5 hours.
  4. Add sugar and ketchup after the ribs have simmered for 1.5 hours and keep simmering until the meat on the ribs is soft.

 

Donkey rolling on the ground 驢打滾

by | Aug 29, 2010

Donkey rolling on the ground 驢打滾

donkey rolling on the ground chinese desert

The Fringe Festival is finally going to finish soon and my life can finally can go back to normal. I’m sorry that I can’t reply messages lately but I did try my best. I really miss updating new recipes on my blog and cooking some tasty Chinese or Taiwanese dish at home. The most important thing is to share my recipe with all of you.

Because of being too tired, I started doing some silly things lately. I usually finish work, go home and found out I can’t open my front door by my key. I realized I tried to use my locker key to open my front door when I’m going to knock my door to ask Chris ”Why you lock me outside of our home!” or I always try to open my locker with my front door key and start panicking, what about “Why I can’t open my locker! Ah….I need my knives for work!”

I was planning to cook some tasty Chinese ribs today but unfortunately I’ve done another stupid thing. I left my keys hang on my lockers and I realized it when I arrived home. Thank god, my colleague is such a sweet heart keeping my key for me until I go back to work on Monday.  But I kind of lock myself at home today so I can’t go to supermarket to buy some ingredients for cooking. (sigh….)

Today I’ll share with you this Chinese dessert recipe which has a really funny name in Chinese. It’s called “Donkey Rolling on the Ground” (驢打滾). I know it’s a strange name for a dessert. But this dessert gained this funny name from the look of it. It looks like a donkey rolling on the ground with all the dust cover on the body. It’s really yummy and easy to make. I use peanut powder instead of the cooked soybean powder because I can’t find the soybean powder. But in proper recipe for this dessert should use soybean powder. (I think I should use walnut powder because Taiwanese and Chinese believe walnut is good for your “brain” and I think I really need it at moment LOL). I hope you will enjoy this recipes and also hope you don’t do something silly like me.

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: Chris Radley Photography

 

 

donkey rolling on the ground chinese desert
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Donkey Rolling on the Ground

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 40 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings 3 people

Ingredients

  • 250 g glutinous rice
  • 250 g water
  • 40 g caster sugar
  • 250 g red bean paste
  • Some peanut powder
  • Some honey or dark brown sugar

Instructions

  1. Cook the 250g glutinous rice with 250g water in the steamer or rice cooker.
  2. Pour the cooked glutinous rice into a mixing bowl with 40g caster sugar and use a rolling pin to pound the rice until the rice looks like dough, but you still can see a little bit rice shape in it.
  3. Separate the rice into 3 portions and flatten it into a long  rectangle shape.
  4. Roll the red bean paste into long stripe shape and put it in the middle of the rice.
  5. Roll it with rice into the column shape. Cut it into 3 cm long and coat it with peanut powder.

Prawn with Pineapple

by | Aug 22, 2010

Prawn with Pineapple

prawn with pineapple

I don’t like to moan but the fact is I’m really exhausted from work. As mentioned in a previous post the Fringe and Tattoo festivals are on at the moment and Edinburgh is horrendously busy.

I always crave food with strong flavours, such as this prawn with pineapple dish. I love the sweetness but also sourness from the pineapple. It always gives me refreshing vibes when I’m tired and it’s both quick and simple to prepare.

The preparation time for this dish is around 30 minutes. Maybe next August I will do a food project called “Chef exhausted from festival’s 30 minutes Eastern cuisine” lol, how do you think?

This dish is a favourite amonst Chinese people. The sweet and sourness from the pineapple perfectly matches with the prawns.

It also one of the most popular dish for banquets because no matter children or adults, they all love the taste of this dish and besides, it’s a colourful, pretty dish as well.

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

 

prawn with pineapple
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Prawn with Pineapple

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Servings 3 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 16 prawns
  • 5 slices pineapple (canned is fine)
  • 1/2 cup corn flour
  • 2 tbsp mayonnaise **
  • 1 tsp black sesame
  • 1/2 tsp white sesame
  • Few lettuce leaves for garnish

Seasonings

  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp rice wine
  • 1/2 egg white
  • 2 tsp potato starch

Instructions

  1. Peel the prawns and make a deep cut on the back of each prawn. Marinate with seasonings for 10 minutes.
  2. Cut each pineapple into 4 small pieces and drain the liquid.
  3. Mix cornstarch with a little bit water, coat prawns with the cornstarch paste, deep fry in 150C hot oil until cooked. Drain the oil from the prawn and leave it aside. Run pineapple pieces through oil quickly and drain off the oil.
  4. Arrange lettuce in a deep bowl. Mix pineapple and prawn together with mayonnaise.  Place the pineapple and prawn into that deep bowl with lettuce and it’s ready to serve.

Recipe Notes

** I prefer use Taiwanese sweet Mayonnaise and you can find the recipe with on my salad boat sandwich recipe.