Thursday, November 02, 2006

Chinese Cold Noodles

Cold noodles are a refreshing treat in Singapore's warm weather. I was fortunate enough to receive some Chinese dried noodles from a friend who goes to China for business quite often and decided to toss up some savory cold Chinese noodles. As with most, if not all of my dishes, this is very easy to do as well.

Ingredients:
1. Dried Chinese noodles
2. Minced pork
3. Salt, pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli oil, onion oil
4. Spicy bean paste
5. Chinese rice wine

Method:
1. The noodle:

a. Bring a pot of water to boil

b. Toss in dried noodles once it's boiled and pour one cup of tap water
c. Wait for it to boil again and check the texture to see if it's al dante, if not, pour in another cup of tap water and wait for it to boil again

d. Prepare a bowl of icy water
e. Remove the noodles from the pot and dump it into the bowl of icy cold water

f. Let the noodles soak and chill (use this time duration to make the minced pork topping)
g. Place some soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli oil to taste at a bottom of a bowl. This is the seasoning for the noodles. Put some noodles on top and drizzle some onion oil through it to prevent it from clumping together.

2. The minced pork:

a. Stirfry minced pork in a wok
b. Season with salt, pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil, Chinese rice wine and spicy bean paste to taste
c. Set aside to cool

Once the pork is cooled, place some noodles in a bowl and top it off with the pork. You may chill this further in the fridge (covered with plastic wrap to prevent drying out).

Hint:
1. The reason why the method of cooking the noodle may seem weird due to the adding of tap water is basically an intricate interplay of temperatures to ensure your noodle becomes extremely bouncy
2. Soba sauce is a great seasoning for the cold noodle as well

Garnish with some fried shallots, Chinese parsley(coriander) and chilli.

Serve COLD.

This is the brand of the noodle I used, it comes in thin and thick versions. If anyone knows where I can find this in Singapore, please do let me know.

D

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey D, nice bowl of noodles, esp in the 'nostalgic' bowl.

Unclenabe said...

Rather splendid i must say, great job on the noodles. Query, where did you get the bowls from ?

D said...

angie: yeah I love my rooster bowl!

unclenabe: you can find them in Chinatown =D

Anonymous said...

i knew i shuda bought that pork mince at woolies! thanks for that quick recipe, i cant wait to try it out!

D said...

gene: no worries, you can actually really season the pork in whatever flavor you want. Spicy bean just seems to go well with the noodles I guess.

Anonymous said...

erm are you supposed to season the pork before hand or just do it while letting the noodles soak and chill?

D said...

anon: You can do it whilst the water is heating up to boil. The beauty about mince is that it does not require a lot of time to marinate because the flavor seeps in real quick =)