Tan Tsai Noodles

Tan Tsai Noodles

tan tsai noodles recipe

In Edinburgh the season has changed once again and it’s turned really cold now. I feel like I’m still recovering from our holiday where we had really hot weather but recently I’ve had a really nasty flu and so the weather in Edinburgh hasn’t helped. The best kind of food for this kind of cold wet weather is a bowl of hot and tasty noodle soup. So, today I’m sharing with you a famous Taiwanese noodle soup called Tan Tsai Noodles.

The story of Tan Tsai noodle began in 1895. There was a fishmonger, Mr Hong, whose family migrated to Fucheng from Zhangzhou in China where he learnt how to cook noodles while making a living catching fish. After some time he moved to Tainan in Taiwan where he still made a living catching fish.

In Taiwan there are two festivals, one called the Tomb-Sweeping Fesetival which is held in March and the other called the Moon Festival which is held in August. Between these seasons is a period called the “Slack Season” where fisherman can’t go out on the water, so Mr Hong began selling noodles.

His noodles had a unique taste and so became really popular so he then decided to sell noodles full time. During the beginning he would carry his noodles on shoulder poles so he could sell them in the streets, so he called these noodles “Slack season Tan Tsai Noodles”. These are known as “Tu Hsian Yueh Tan Tsai Noodles”. “Tu Hsian Yueh” means slack season in Chinese and “Tan Tsai” translates to shoulder poles in Taiwanese.

So, as you can imagine this noodle soup perfectly sums up my situation right now. Since coming back from holiday I’ve been experiencing a slight “financial slack season” and all of the ingredients for this recipe are easy and cheap to get hold of. But the most important thing about this dish is the price doesn’t reflect on the taste, it’s still incredibly tasty. It proves that both expensive and cheap food can be equally tasty. Personally, I like local market food rather than fancy restaurant. It tastes a lot more home made but good home made food is always better than restaurant food.

By the way, I finally took a final picture myself. Now it’s getting dark and with Chris’s work schedule he really doesn’t have time to take photos himself so he taught me how to do the photos. Hope you like it.

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

tan tsai noodles inredients

 

Tan Tsai Noodles

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

Ingredients

Ingredients for the noodle stock

  • 1 chicken bone
  • 6 Prawns only use the shells for the stock, keep the prawns for garnish
  • 1 handful bonito shaving also known as Katsuobushi shavings
  • 3 Spring Onions cut into 3cm lengthways
  • 2 slices ginger
  • water

Ingredients for the mince sauce

  • 400 g pork mince
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp Rice Wine
  • 2 tbsp fried shallots
  • 2 cups water
  • 1/4 tsp pepper powder
  • 1 tsp Chinese five spice powder
  • 1 tsp rock sugar

Instructions

Procedure for the noodle stock

  1. Remove the shell from prawns and use a little bit of oil to sauté the prawn shell
    tan tsai noodles procedure
  2. Roast the chicken bone in the oven until the bone gets some colour on it
    tan tsai noodles recipe
  3. Put everything into a stock pot and cover the ingredients with water.
  4. Boil it first then simmer for 2 hours. It’s now ready to serve with noodle.

Procedure for mince sauce

  1. Heat a wok with 2 tablespoons oil and stir-fry the pork until it’s cooked on the outside.
  2. Add all the ingredients and mix them evenly. Boil it first then simmer around 30 minutes to reduce down half of the sauce.

Final procedure for Tan Tsai Noodle

  1. Poach the prawn and vegetable in a pot of boiling water first. After cook the noodle in the boiling water.
  2. Place noodle and some mash garlic (optional) into a bowl and pour some mince sauce on top. Garnish with prawn and vegetable and add the soup.

 

Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

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

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.

 

Beef Noodle Soup Recipe

Beef Noodle Soup Recipe

beef noodle soup recipe

I love beef noodle soup, especially when you just came home from cold and wet weather. This is a comfort dish to warm up everyone from their body to their heart. This dish is easy to make however it takes some time to cook but the result will pay out everytime you take a bite.

You will realize how wonderful life is when you have the first sip of the soup and taste the juicy beef in your mouth, finally you will have a bite of the sweetest carrot and the home made noodle. You will feel a bit lost when you had your last bite and wish you had more.

I made my own noodle at home because nothing can beat the homemade noodle’s taste and that amazing texture.

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

Beef Noodle Soup

Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Ingredients for Stewed Beef

  • 800 g beef flank cut into 3cm dice. Try to keep any fatty bits for better flavour and texture
  • 4 medium carrots cut into 3cm dice
  • 3 spring onions
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 3 thin slices ginger
  • 1 chili depends on personal flavour
  • 2 cups brown or beef stock I used chicken bone toasted with vegetable to make brown stock

Seasonings for Stewed Beef

  • 3 star anises
  • 1/2 cinnamon stick
  • 2 slices liquourice optional
  • 4 tbsp soy sauce
  • 6 tbsp rice wine
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 2 tbsp chili bean sauce

Ingredients for Noodles

  • 300 g bread flour
  • 1 medium egg
  • 200 ml water
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Procedures for stewed beef

  1. Blanch beef by boiled water and wash it under cold water then leave it on aside. Heat up a wok with 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and sauté spring onions, ginger, garlic, star anise and cinnamon. Add beef and Chilli bean sauce to stir-fry for a couple minutes.

  2. Place procedures 1 into a stock pot and add all the seasonings into the pot then add water to cover the beef. Use full gas power to boil the beef first then turn to lowest gas power to simmer it at least 1 hour.

  3. Add carrot into the pot and cook it until the beef and carrot turn soft and tender.

  4. Place cooked noodle into a bowl with some vegetable you like and put couple table spoon of stewed beef with sauce on top and cover everything by stock then it’s ready to serve. **

Procedures for Noodles

  1. Mix everything together and rub it for 10~15 minutes, cover by cling film or wet kitchen napkin and leave it on aside for 20 minutes.

  2. Use rolling pin to roll the dough and make it thin and flat.

  3. Fold the dough from procedures 2 and cut it into strip.

  4. Use hands to separate the noodle and boil water to cook it.

Recipe Notes

** You can also use a little bit of chopped spring onion to garnish it. Spring onion has special fragrance can make the beef noodle taste even better.