Eating Tales

My friend Amy is living out in China at the moment and has sent me an article about noodles that she has written and had published by Good Food magazine in the Middle East. An interesting insite into the life of noodles and time in China!

I had my brother in-law, his girlfriend and a friend of mine over for dinner last night. I decided to cook Chinese ribs and used an old Chinese cookbook of my mums. The instructions were in Chinese but there was an English translation. We thought they tasted very authentic. Having just had some for lunch today Mark and I thought that the flavour had developed more and it had a slight taste of blackbean sauce. However there isn’t a blackbean insight in the recipe! You are supposed to reduce the sauce down completely so its thick and sticks to the ribs, which worked well last time I made the dish, but this time cooking it in a mass volume, (Mark was worried there wasn’t going to be enough food and told me I should probably cook a chicken too!) I thought the meat would be falling off the ribs by the time the sauce had thickened. So instead I thickened it with cornflour, which worked just as well. There are probably enough ribs left to eat everyday for the rest of the week!!

The recipe is as follows and is in US measurements as this is what the Chinese used:

The book is Chinese cooking favorite home dishes

Ingredients:

6006 spareribs ( I got baby back ribs from my butcher)

2 stalks of spring onions

3 slices ginger root

2 tablespoons white wine

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 tablespoon sugar

2 star anise

1 1/2 cups water

Chop the rips into 6cm pieces- a meat cleaver is good for this.

Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok and fry the ribs until fragrant. Add all the ingredients and bring to the boil. (I held back half the spring onions to add at the end for some colour) Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes until the ribs are tender. Increase heat to medium and cook until the liquid is almost absorbed. Or thicken with cornflour. Remove from heat.

Roast the ribs at 235 degrees for 10 minutes. ( I did not do this as they were nice as they were)

You can freeze these and then defrost before roasting in the oven to reheat.

Having been to the dentist 5 times in a week and being full of cold I have been on cooking strike. Last night I wanted to make something very quick and easy and I only had limited ingredients (ones that I would probably not usually use in a Chinese soup) as I haven’t done a grocery shop either! Inspite of being very simple it turned out to be pretty tasty. I’ll add the recipe below but I didn’t measure anything so if you want to make it add the ingredients to taste.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 litre Beef Stock

2 Star Anise

2 Sticks of celery

1 Leek

1/4 small cabbage

3 blocks of flattened egg noodles

1 piece of Salmon

Soya Sauce

Sesame Oil

Black Pepper

Bring beef stock to the boil with the 2 star anise. Meanwhile shred all the vegetables very finely, add to the stock with the egg noodles and boil for about 3/4 minutes. Season with pepper. Steam the piece of salmon and serve on top of the noodles.

We only wanted one piece of salmon between us, but you could do 2. These quantities also made more than enough noodles and soup, so there is more for lunch today! We ate this dish with chilli sauce made by my Dad as he had a large crop of chillis from the garden this year. To make the chilli sauce mix the ingredients below to taste. I have made this before and have never measured quantities-it always works!

Chilli sauce ingredients:

Chillis-sliced finely

Vinegar

Garlic-crushed

Sugar