Vegetables with Noodles and Beef

I made this today for our first day of Chinese New Year celebration.  Rave reviews.  I'm still not 100 percent satisfied with it, so tweaks will still take place, but it is really good as is.  Tom declared "This is a GREAT way to start off the New Year!"  As a side note, the girls and I were making Chinese lanterns to hang (Tessa's idea).    As we were finishing Tess said, "I wonder if Estee has her lanterns made yet."  As if the rest of the world joins us in this tradition!  But it goes to show how much this tradition is loved by our family.  I love how it brings us together.  But enough rambling. . .here is the recipe:

Vegetables with Noodles and Beef

Make Sesame Salt:

Toast 2 TBSP sesame seeds.  Let cool.  Finely chop/crush the seeds.  (I use a nut chopper, but a mortar and pestle or spice grinder would also work.)  Add 1/4 tsp salt.  Set aside.

1 cup bean sprouts

1 cup matchstick-size carrots

1 medium onion, sliced thin lengthwise

1 cup green onions, chopped (about 1/4" pieces)

1 cup slightly chopped peanuts (I use party peanuts)

2 TBSP fresh ginger, chopped 

1 tsp minced garlic

8 ounces flank steak (or other steak)

2 tsp sugar

1/8 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp red pepper

2 TBSP soy sauce

Peanut oil

Bring 2 quarts water to boil in a large pan.  Add noodles, cook 2 minutes.  Drain and run cold water over them to stop cooking.  Return them to the pan.  Stir in 1/2 TBSP peanut oil and 1 TBSP soy sauce.  Stir to coat.  

In wok or frying pan, toast peanuts until slightly browned.  Remove them to the noodle pan.  Add 1 TBSP peanut oil and heat until hot.  Add carrots.  Cook until just starting to tenderize, then add onion (not the green ones).  Cook until just tender, at the very end, add the bean sprouts.  (You can add other veggies such as red pepper or celery or mushrooms.  Just cook everything until slightly tender.)  Add the veggies, including the green onions to the noodle pan.  Heat another TBSP of peanut oil.  Add garlic and ginger.  Stir fry for a few seconds then add the beef.  Cook until beef is cooked.  Add the beef to the noodle pan along with remaining ingredients.  Heat and add remaining ingredients (including the 1 remaining TBSP of soy sauce and Sesame salt.)  Serve immediately.

Possible tweaks:

Add a few dried red peppers (add to pan with garlic/ginger and cook with the meat).  A little more garlic would probably be good.  

Chinese Noodles--like unto Panda Express

The title is a bit misleading because getting noodles tasting a lot like Panda's is difficult because they are fried to give that distinct taste.  That is hard to replicate---at least with my cooking equipment.  But I finally have come with with something that tastes quite good and will only use half the dishes in your kitchen!

Chop veggies:
1-2 onions
2 cups-ish celery sliced thin
2 cups-ish shredded cabbage--regular or Napa
1/4 cup match stick sized carrots (cut quite skinny)
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
3 green onions

Use all or some of the veggies.  Chop and set aside.

Prepare and set aside:
1/2 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic

Mix sauce, set aside:
3 TBSP soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt and pepper
shake of cayenne

Cook dried Chinese noodles (1-2 pkgs).  Make sure they are wheat based, not rice based.  I'm getting pickier with my Chinese food.  The ones from local grocery stores are not nearly as good as ones from an Asian market.  Cook in hot water for just a few minutes.  Drain in a colander and shake excess water.  Put in a bowl and pour 2-3 TBSP vegetable oil over them and stir well.  Then in small batches fry them in a hot frying pan for just a few minutes.  Transfer back to cooking pot to keep warm while you cook the veggies.  Add another TBSP of oil to the frying pan and heat until hot.  Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant (30 seconds or so).  Add veggies, starting with the harder ones first--carrots, then celery then onions.  Cook only until tender crisp and cabbage just starts to wilt.  Toss noodles with the sauce and add veggies.  Stir and heat slightly then serve.

Chinese Beef Noodle Soup (adventure!)

While searching for something else last fall, I ran into a video of Chinese noodles being made.  I had never seen anything like that before and was intrigued.  Then I ran into this video that is sort of a tutorial.  Moments later I emailed Cache and asked him if he wanted to try them with me over Christmas break.  And moments later I heard back from him: of course he did!  He loves culinary adventures as much as me!  All we needed was a few recipes.

When it came time to make this, we could not find the video above to know how to make the soup base.  So we used this one as a base instead.  (Tom says they are both authentic, the one we used is from northern China with a lot of spice and the other is a typical southern fare.)

I found a noodle recipe with grams as the measuring standard, so thankfully Mathematician Cache was able to translate that into something usable for us.  The noodles were quite tricky and we were terribly unsuccessful at getting them pulled and stretched.  We don't know whether it was our dough or our lack of experience or both.  But we have ideas for improvement for next time.  We did however, roll them out thin and sliced them.  It is a wonderful alternative if we can't ever figure out the pulling and stretching bit.  The recipe we used was so small that at last minute I sent Tom to buy some packaged fresh Chinese noodles.  While okay in a pinch, they were not nearly as good as our homemade.  So we'll definitely be trying our hand at them again soon.  (Chinese New Year is just around the corner and Cache took ingredients to make it at BYU.)

Everyone in the family LOVED this soup.  We can only improve on it!

Here is our working recipe:

Noodles:  (I will triple this for my family.)
1 1/4 cup cake flour
3 TBSP all purpose flour
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 TBSP oil

We put this in the bread machine then let it sit most of the day to break down the gluten.  It was such a sticky dough that we had to add a lot of flour to even be able to work with it.


Next time I am going to try stirring this mixture together by hand and then using my bread machine to knead it as I slowly add more cake flour as needed until it is a good working consistency.  After that cycle is finished I will see how stretchy it is.  If it needs more kneading, I will use my bread machine again on the knead cycle.  If this doesn't work, I can always roll them out and cut long and thin!

Soup:
Cut tenderloin steak into bite-sized pieces, removing all fat.  Cook in cold water and cook slowly until cooked through.  Drain and rinse well.

In soup pan, saute in 1-2 TBSP hot oil
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 TBSP sliced ginger

Cook until fragrant.  Add 6 dried chili pepper (with tops broken off).  Add:

Cooked beef
1 1/2 TBSP chili paste
scant 1/3 cup soy sauce
1 cup beef broth
5 cups water
1 tsp. sugar

Simmer for 1 hour.  Ladle over a bowl of noodles.

We all wanted a few vegetables in it.  Next time, I'll add some carrots, broccoli, and green onions near the end of the cooking time.

This soup had a lot of heat!  But we all loved it.  We just added a little extra water to the girls' bowls.  Can't wait to try it again!