the noodle so nice, they named it twice

kung hei fat choi!  we could say that i remembered it was chinese new year and i planned to do a post about chinese cooking in order to honour our asian brethren.  or we could say that it was a complete accident and i just happened to be craving noodles.  i’ll let you decide my level of commitment here.  

growing up in hong kong, chinese new year was always a fun time: you got to eat lots of yum food, there were firecrackers, and everyone – EVERYONE – gave you little red envelopes filled with cold, hard cash.  my kind of holiday.  so welcome to 2013: the year of the snake.  the snake is the year that i was born into, somewhat disturbingly, given that they are about one of my least favourite animals.  also one of the few things i think i would never ever be tempted to eat.  not that we were lacking in opportunities in the HK days, you could find snake served in restaurants on just about every street corner.  there was even a snake man at the local street market, whose method of “preparing” your live order was so horrific, it gave me nightmares for years.  let’s not think of it.  let us cleanse our brains with a picture of baby platypi inexplicably wearing hats.

ahhhhh, better.  (and why does the menacing snake get a whole lunar year, but the sweet, noble, fedora-rocking platypus does not??  rude.) 

onto noodles.  as a bright spot in the midst of a week of germs, coughing, and moaning by small people, i bought myself a new cookbook: “every grain of rice” by fuchsia dunlop.  (because if you want to buy a book of chinese cooking, why wouldn’t you buy one written by a british woman named “fuchsia” ??)  filled with a myriad of recipes immediately jumping onto my shortlist, the first to try was chosen by verbose husband whom, upon passing the book on my desk, pointed to the picture on the cover and declared “i want that.”  “that” turned out to be dan-dan mian, a dish i’m not terribly familiar with, but sounded like it could be a nicki minaj song, so nicki and i headed out for supplies, hand in pink-haired hand.  now, i can’t necessarily recommend visiting your local asian supermarket on the actual day of chinese new year, where apparently most of the population of the greater seattle area were forming some kind of flash mob and coming to blows over the very last mung bean sprout.  however, nicki ran a little misdirection, threw out some thought-provoking lyrics, and we fought our way through the hordes, finally tracking down some pickled mustard greens.  now we were in business and ready for some noodle goodness.  va va voom voom.

dan dan noodles (dan dan mian) (adapted from “every grain of rice” by fuchsia dunlop)

3 tbsp canola oil

1lb ground pork

4 tsp shaoxing wine

2 tsp hoisin sauce

2 tsp soy sauce

1 pack fresh chinese noodles

for the sauce:

1 cup chicken stock (or noodle cooking water)

4 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp rice vinegar

4 tbsp chili oil

4 spring onions, finely sliced

to garnish (optional):

pickled mustard greens, finely chopped

pickled green chili, finely chopped

pickled ginger

heat oil in a wok (or large skillet) over medium heat.  stir-fry pork until it changes colour.  add wine, stir, then add hoisin and soy sauce.  stir-fry a few more minutes until the pork is cooked through, but there is still plenty of sauce left.  remove from wok and set aside.

prepare the noodles as directed.  

i bought these, which turned out, bizarrely, to be already cooked.  weird.  i blame the flash mob for distracting nicki & me.  so a quick warm in the wok and these bad boys were ready to go.

put all sauce ingredients except for the stock into a large serving bowl.  add pork and noodles and mix well.  if you like your noodles more soupy, add the stock.  i left it out (mostly for ease of feeding youngest) and didn’t miss it.

the pickled mustard greens were a first for me, but i shall definitely be going back to there.  if you like kim chi, chances are you’ll like this stuff, too.  funky, musty, salty, delicious, and possibly even more weird than its korean cabbage cousin, think of it as kim chi on steroids.  i also topped my noodles with some sliced pickled green chiles and some pickled ginger.  apparently i have a pickle problem. 

boom.

one other thing i like about this dish is, you can choose to add the chili oil after serving, so it is entirely appropriate (and was a huge hit) for the menschkins, who have yet to embrace the spice.  (if this still hasn’t happened in a few years’ time, i’m going to start to question if they’re really mine.)

okay, what are you waiting for?  the flash mob is bound to be done by now, so go buy some pickled goodness and use your noodle.  nicki is waiting.  (if you want it, you got it, you got that dan-dan.)