New Year, New Food to try out - Mei's Chilled Chinese Noodle Bowl

Mei's famous Chlled Chinese Noodle bowl (farthest to the left)

AUTHENTIC CHINESE FOOD RECIPE - Straight from China!

2010 has come to a close, but we would like to hold on to some of the dearest friendships and memories we have made while living abroad. In honor of the relationships we have formed with the Chinese Bukas, Drew and I are going to attempt to make Mei's famous Chinese Chilled Noodle bowl. Mei is from the Chinese province located within the Golden Triangle and I believe this dish is customary from where she lives. We appreciate her sharing this recipe with us and hopefully we are going to make it as delicious as she does. If any of you out there give this dish a try - I would love to hear from you! Let me know how it turns out!

200g Chinese noodles (can be bought in almost Asian stores; it looks like an Asian version spaghetti)

Fresh ginger, garlic, Chinese parsley, green onion; Sesame paste, olive oil, Chinese salted Tofu, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, red pepper oil.

1.   Boil some water in a deep pot and then put noodles in. Stir the noodles from time to time for 5 minutes (very similar like cooking spaghetti).  Don’t overcook the noodles to be too soft.

2.  Take noodles out of the pot and rinse them in cold water. 

3.  Put noodles in another bowl or pot and pour some olive oil in, and stir the noodles so that they don’t stick together (I often use hand to do this).

4.  Put noodles in fridge and cool it (the coolness will harden the noodles later chewy; Remember: harder noodles are always better than overcooked soft noodles for making cold noodles.)

5. Wash the fresh ingredients. 

6.  Cut parsley and green onion (you can decide what shape or size you like; for green onion smaller pieces mingle better with noodles so as to make the taste better.)

7.  Grind fresh ginger and garlic into paste and add some water (the smaller particle ginger and garlic are ground into, the easier for the noodles to absorb, so a better taste!  But this is a tough process when you don’t have any appropriate tools but your hands!)

8.  Making the sauce: blend sesame paste with warm water (mix with a spoon), until it dissolves totally into water; add the ginger garlic into the water followed by the rest ingredients except parsley and green onion; stir until they totally blend together (you can add small amount of everything at one time and taste it to see what is lacking or what you prefer, and then add more).  It is a fun process and you get to experience how sensitive our tongues can be and how easily in our daily meals we ignore them to the extent that we don’t really taste food but only eat it! -Mei)

9.  Sprinkle parsley and green onion on the cold noodles (remember, they may still be in the fridge!) 

10. Whenever the food is ready to serve, pour the sauce into noodles and stir adequately.  The bowl of cold noodles are ready to be served!

11.  If there are left overs, you can refrigerate them for another meal or you can always keep some of the sauce in the refrigerator of another time, boil and chill fresh noodles and serve.

Thank you Mei!!! We will see you in April!