Stir fried Cats Ear Noodle

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 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.

 

Donkey rolling on the ground 驢打滾

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

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

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

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.

 

Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

steamed egg with seafood sauce

In Edinburgh I believe August must be every Edinburgh Chef’s worst nightmare. Edinburgh is an extremely busy city throughout the year but August brings the Fringe and Military tattoo festivals, which bring millions of tourists here every year. At the top of the Royal Mile, where both of the festivals take place is the entrance to the Witchery, the restaurant I work for. So, we are fully booked every night and there are always a million jobs that need to be done. (If you want to come to the Witchery, please make a reservation before you come to have meal, I beg you.)

After 3 days of really hard work in the kitchen, I just don’t have the motivation to cook a big meal so I I’ve recently been eating smaller and perhaps simpler dishes. I suddenly think about a dish that my mother usually cooked for my father and I after she came home from work. This dish is called Steamed eggs with Seafood . This seafood dish is really quick to cook and also really beautiful to look at. The most important thing is you can cook this dish within 30 minutes. Oh my!! It’s a great blessing for working mother and wife.

By the way, Do you still remember my last blog about our ceramic work?? Here is the final result photo of our ceramic works. We had great fun there and hope to go back to Doodle again soon. Personally made ceramic crafts could be a great souvenir to bring home if you visit Edinburgh.

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

picture frames

 

Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 6 prawns
  • 5 cooked mussels you can use any seafood you like including scallops or squids
  • 2 dried shiitake mushroms
  • 1/2 spring onion chop finely for garnish

Marinade for prawns

  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 pinch white pepper
  • 1/2 tsp potato starch
  • 1/4 tsp rice wine

Seasonings

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp bonito powder (optional)
  • 1.5 cups water
  • 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 tsp potato starch
  • 1/4 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp soy sauce

Instructions

  1. Soak dried shitake mushroom in the warm water for 5~10 minutes until it has softened and slice it.
  2. Wash prawns and dry. Mix with marinade for 5~10 minutes.
  3. Heat the 1 ½ cup water, salt, bonito powder in a pot until it’s hot but not boiling. Pour it into the beaten eggs and stir constantly when you’re pouring the seasoning into the eggs. Sieve the egg mixture into a bowl or deep plate and put half of seafood into the egg mixture. Cover the bowl with cling film and steam it for around 15 minutes to be done.
  4. Heat 1 teaspoon oil and stir fry the shitake mushroom, rest of the seafood and add oyster sauce, 1/2 cup water mixed with ¼ teaspoon potato starch, sesame oil, soy sauce. Bring it to boil and pour over steamed egg.

 

Raspberry Snowflake Cake

Raspberry Snowflake Cake

There are couple things that have made me feel very happy recently. The first thing is my head chef asked me for the Peking duck recipe for the new dish on our restaurant menu. The second thing is Lisa from http://www.koreanamericanmommy.blogspot.com follow my recipe and made her first “three cup chicken” and it turned out really awesome. Here is her blog about this three cup chicken: http://koreanamericanmommy.blogspot.com/2010/07/chef-liv-wans-chinese-three-cup-chicken.html

I feel so proud and also super happy. I wish people who visit my blog can enjoy my recipe and have fun in the kitchen. That’s the greatest thing to me. I feel really honour that my head chef asked the recipe from me and I wish my recipe help him a bit with the new dish. This is the two thing make me feel really happy and I share my happiness with you who is reading this post at moment and wish you have a great day.

Now, It’s the time for the recipe of the day. I’m going to share this Chinese dessert recipe with you. My colleague asked me if there any popular Chinese or Taiwanese desserts? Yes, of course there are a lot of desserts in both China and Taiwan. But I have to say they are different from desserts that are popular in the UK. Here is an example dessert that I share with you today.

raspberry snowflake cake

When the first time I read about this dessert’s name I just fall in love with it. How cute is the name? I guess the name snowflake comes from the layer of coconut powder that actually looks a bit like a snowflake.

Raspberry snowflake cake tastes a little bit sweet and sour and the most important thing is this dessert has to be eaten in cold. You must eat it immediately after taking it out from fridge.

These photos were taken by Chris from Chris Radley Photography

 

Raspberry Snowflake Cake

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 30 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

A

  • 50 g rasberries
  • 450 g water
  • 180 g caster sugar
  • 200 ml milk
  • 50 ml double cream
  • 5 leafs gelatine

B

  • 120 g potato starch
  • 100 ml water
  • coconut powder

Instructions

  1. Cook raspberry, 450g water and caster sugar in a small sauce pan and bring it to boil. Keep whisk it while cooking to help sugar and raspberry dissolve.
  2. Soften gelatine in cold water. Add milk and double cream into step 1 and bring it to boil again.
  3. Turn off the gas and add gelatine into step 2 and keep whisk it to help to mix evenly.
  4. Mix potato starch and water evenly and add it into step 3.
  5. Pour the mixture from step 4. Into a long rectangle shape baking tray with baking paper in it. (Baking paper helps us to take out the snowflake cake easier later.) Put the snowflake cake into your fridge for 1 or 2 hours to help it form. Cover the snowflake cake with coconut powder and it’s ready to serve.