Sichuan pork and pumpkin stir-fry over crispy noodles

I found this recipe on a fellow blogger website - thanks 3 Hungry Tummies - but had to make some changes to make this a bit more of a full meal, with some extra greens, larger quantities, and some improved methods. As I mentioned in the beef and bok choy over crispy noodles recipe, this is an extreme comfort food dish for me, but even more so than the beef and bok choy version, this one has the noodle I remember but adds some new and intense flavors that make this dish really satisfying. It's spicy, sweet, savory, salty, warming, crunchy, chewy - there's a lot going on here.

I really recommend trying the noodles in the air fryer, which helps them come out perfectly. I tried many times in a pan or wok, but the hot air really gets this the right level of crispy throughout, in a way that could only be achieved by deep frying otherwise.

• 1/2 lb frozen lo mein noodles, cooked till al dente, drained, refreshed with cold water and drained again
• 1/2 lb wedge of pumpkin (less than half of a pie pumpkin's worth), peeled and diced
• 1/2 lb ground pork (coarse if you can get / make it)
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• a small knob of ginger (appx 1 tbsp), chopped
• 10 dried Chinese chiles
• 2 cups chopped bok choy or other Chinese greens, stems and leaves separated, cut into 1/2" strips
• 2 tbsp of doubanjian (hot bean paste)
• 2 tbsp of oyster sauce
• 1/2 tbsp light soy + 1 tsp for marinating
• 1/2 tbsp of dark soy
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• 1/2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine + 1 tsp for marinating
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• 1 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbsp water, for thickening + 1/2 tbsp for marinating
• 1 tsp sesame oil, for marinating
• 1/4 tsp white pepper, for marinating
• 4 spring onions, cut into 2 in lengths then cut lengthwise
• 1/2 tbs of Sichuan peppercorn, lightly roasted and crushed/ground
• Canola oil, for stir-frying.

Cook the lo mein noodles per the instructions, then rinse, drain, and toss in 2 tbsp neutral cooking oil like canola. Follow the process from beef and bok choy over crispy noodles.

Dice the pumpkin and prepare the garlic and spring onions.

Marinate minced pork with the smaller quantity of light soy and Chinese cooking wine, the white pepper, and the smaller quantity of cornstarch. Toss to coat, allow to sit 5 minutes, then add the sesame oil last to seal in the marinade slightly while cooking.

Pre-heat an air fryer to 385 F for a few minutes, then make a small noodle cake no larger than the area of your air fryer, and not more than a few noodles thick, and throw in for 8 minutes. Once browned, remove, and repeat with remaining noodles. This should make 2-3 patties, but scale up as desired.

Fry the diced pumpkin in canola oil over high heat until slightly charred. Remove to a bowl. Add more oil, then brown the minced, marinated pork with a little more oil when the wok heats up again, breaking up large lumps as you go. Remove to the bowl with the pumpkin.

Reheat the work over medium-high heat, add more oil, and quickly stir-fry the bok choy stems for a minute or so until starting to char slightly. Add the chopped garlic, ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns with a little more oil and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Return the pork and pumpkin to the wok, but push out to the sides. Add in the dried chiles and hot bean paste and cook until the oil turns a little red.

Incorporate the pumpkin and pork into the stir fry and toss on high heat for a minute, adding the sauce base (sugar, light soy, dark soy, cooking wine, oyster sauce) at the end.

Add stock, bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until the pumpkin is tender, which could be 5-15 minutes depending on the pumpkin. As the pumpkin is nearing doneness, add the bok choy leaves and stir to incorporate. Thicken with the cornstarch slurry, bring to a boil to ensure the cornstarch does its job, and add in the spring onions.

Pour the spicy sauce over the crispy noodles and enjoy.

Beef and Bok Choy Over Crispy Air-Fried Noodles

Jump to recipe

When I was growing up, there was a Chinese restaurant near me that served a few different stir-fries served in a "bird's nest". Although actual birds' nests are a thing, this is not what they served - it was shredded potatoes shaped into a bowl and then deep fried, usually served with a mix of seafood and vegetables in a rich, light colored but very garlic-heavy sauce. The dish has a lot in common with some versions of chow mein, which in some preparations is a bed of really crispy noodles with a very heavily sauced stir-fry plated over the top. Both are great, and the consistency is what really wins me over - crispy on the edges, but chewy and loaded with flavor as you work your way in, and as the noodles start soaking up the sauce from the outside in.

To try to replicate this, I bought a nest-frying tool, which is a strange contraption of two concentric hemispherical baskets that clamp together, and you load up the volume in between with potato and then deep fry the whole thing. Naturally, I've never used it. Instead, I've tried to make the noodle version of this dish a few times with minimal success, mostly because the crispy noodle cakes that serve as the foundation usually come out both squishy and burnt when trying to get heat into the center of a cake of pre-boiled noodles. On a recent attempt, after having a fit about ruining too many noodles, I gave up in a fit of rage and threw a small quantity of the noodles into my air fryer, which turned out to be the magic step - this turned a disaster of a process into a really easy one. And then today, based on a recent attempt at making a few Thai noodle soups from Serious Eats, I borrowed a technique where you make a garlic-infused oil and then use that as the oil to coat the noodles in, prior to air-frying. The result was better than any version I've had in a restaurant.

The toppings for this crispy noodle cake almost don't matter as long as there's enough of a decent, garlicky sauce to work its way into them at serving time. I tend to lean towards a beef with oyster sauce, so I liked the version that combines beef and bok choy from Omnivore's Cookbook, adapted to what was in the garden, and using some leftover rare rib roast and only lightly stir-fried. It's infinitely adaptable, so long as there's at least a cup of a thickened sauce to go over the noodles. If you get the timing just right, serving over the hot, freshly fried noodles will get them to sizzle audibly, and start soaking up that goodness right before you start eating.

A word on ingredients - use decent stuff. There's a good amount of oyster sauce in this, and Shaoxing wine is used in a couple of steps. Try to get a good quality version of these two things, which both make a difference. Try to find an oyster sauce that's actually got "oyster" as the first ingredient, and look for a wine that's got less salt and might be labeled "hua diao" or has aged a bit. This is going to change the flavor immensely, and took me a long time and many mediocre stir-fries to realize.

These are the versions of the key ingredients that I keep on hand. And yes, that's Japanese soy sauce, not Chinese.

Fresh Pho Bo. Or, How I Turned 6 Pounds of Bones into Pure Awesome

12/10/12: Not too long ago, when I was just getting started with this whole blog thing, I was still posting some recipes that, to most of us, would appear sane.  This included a recipe for 'fast pho', cutting out the longer steps of pho creation so that it could be made in about 45 minutes.  But sometimes you have to throw hours at a dish, just to know what it could be if you didn't get lazy.  This recipe is that result.  Real, no kidding pho, just like what you can get for a few bucks at most Vietnamese restaurants.  Why would I do this at home, you ask?  Because I am, as they say in Vietnam, off my nut.

Update 3/18/14: it's been 15 months since I posted this, and I've now made this dish 3 times with increasing success.  This time we discovered the convenience of buying the pre-sliced beef from the Asian grocery store, along with the correct pho rice noodles for the first time, which come vacuum-sealed in the refrigerated section, and are ready to go as soon as you dunk them in the hot broth for 5-10 seconds.  Saved tons of time in the serving stage, and the only real effort was in the stock making, which has become a fairly painless process that we did while we had company over.  So maybe you don't have to be crazy to do this after all.

If I had no job and no other hobbies, I would stay in and make things like this all the time.  Unfortunately, like many of us I don't often have time to sit around for 6 hours and cook this dish.  Which is too bad, because this pho is as good as any restaurant's, and I know exactly what went into mine.  Fresh ingredients, very little salt, lean meat, and a mix of exotic and common spices and sauces.

I want you to make this recipe.  I really do.  And post on here about your experience.  Tell me what you changed, what you used.  I'll try to make it easy for you to follow, but it's still a long process that requires some special equipment and ingredients.  Most likely, you'll need an Asian grocery store nearby to even entertain this idea.  Here's what else you'll need, in decreasing order of cost:

• A meat slicer, a really sharp knife, a friendly butcher, or a decent Asian grocery store
• A large (3+ gallon) pot
• A second large (2+ gallon) pot
• A large colander or strainer
• A fine mesh strainer spoon or skimmer
• Cheesecloth

My recipe is adapted from a collection of different recipes I found online, complemented by techniques from my earlier fast pho recipe, and adjusted based on taste testing during cooking.  If you don't like it, reply and tell me why not.  I'm probably going to make it again, on a day when it's cold and rainy and I'm trapped in the house, much like this adventure.

Beef Pho (Pho Bo) Vietnamese Noodle Soup

Inspired by Viet World Kitchen, cobbled together by me

The stock:

• 3 medium yellow onions (about 1 pound total)
• 4-inch piece ginger (about 4 ounces)
• 5-6 pounds beef bones (marrow, knuckle, calf's foot) - look for some variety, and bits with tendons that will break down, as opposed to just bone
• One 8" daikon, peeled, cut into 5 large chunks
• 15 star anise
• 8 whole cloves
• 3-inch cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
• 3 tbsp salt
• 6 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp sugar, or 1 ounce yellow rock sugar (duong phen)

The dish:

• 1.5-2 pounds small (1/8-inch wide) dried or fresh banh pho (rice stick) noodles
• 1/2 pound raw eye of round, brisket, sirloin, or other tender, lean beef, sliced very thinly across the grain
• Thai basil (hung que)
• Cilantro
• Bean sprouts (about 1/2 pound)
• 1 jalapeno, thinly sliced
• Lime wedges
• Hoisin sauce
• Sriracha sauce

The setup.  Are you kidding me, look at all of the bones!

Char onion and ginger.  Cut your onions in half, peel off the papery outer layer, and set over an open flame with the unpeeled ginger on a grill or gas stove.  I repurposed the rack from my oven and placed over the gas burners to make a large cooking surface.  Let the skin burn, rotating occasionally.  After about 15 minutes, they will soften and become fragrant.  Let cool, and rub off the blackened parts off the onions under running water.  Peel the ginger.  Set aside.

Char the root vegetables over an open fire

After you char the vegetables, rub off some of the blackened char and throw this into the stock

Parboil the bones to clean off 'impurities'.  This was a commonly encountered step online, so I didn't skip it.  Place bones in large stockpot (minimum 12-quart capacity) and barely cover with cold water.  Boil vigorously over high heat for 2 to 3 minutes.  Now dump the bones into a colander and rinse with warm water.  Scrub out your pot and return bones to the pot.

Rinse dem bones!

Now make your soup base.  Make a small herb pouch by placing the cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, and anise in cheesecloth and tying into a pouch - this will prevent excess grit from accumulating in the soup.  Toast your spices in a dry saute pan before putting them into the soup, which really brings out their flavor.  Put the bones, the herb pouch, the onions, and ginger in the stockpot, and add 6 quarts of water.  Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower flame to a simmer (not a boil).

Toast your spices in a dry pan to bring out extra flavor

You know you want a pouch like mine.

For the next hour or so, use a skimmer every 10 minutes to remove any scum that rises to surface.  What happens if you don't skim this?  You get all kinds of weird protein foam that bubbles up, called "colloidal juice".  And since this looks about as appetizing as it sounds, you probably don't want this in your soup, because if you leave it it will dissolve back into the stock, making it cloudy.  It's also got some of the fat and impurities in it according to the CIA, so it pays to grab it and get it out of there.  But the jury is out on whether that last part is true or not.  Anyway, here's what I'm talking about:

Got a skimmer?  If not, consider investing in one if you make stock.

Every 10 minutes or so, get that foam out of there.  It will go from this...

...to this.  Much better, isn't it?  Trust me, it will pay off big time by being clear and delicious

Skim and continue simmering for a total of 90 minutes, then add the daikon and continue cooking for another few hours.  How long?  Until you're tired of cooking it, that's how long.  I would say a minimum of 3 hours, and a maximum of 5 (total, not from this point).  While cooking, taste periodically and adjust seasonings thusly - if it's too bland, add more salt, 1/2 tbsp at a time.  If it's not tart enough, add more fish sauce, 1 tbsp at a time.  If it's too tart, add more sugar, 1 tsp at a time.  You want it a bit concentrated, because you'll be adding unseasoned ingredients to the final product, like noodles and sprouts.  Don't worry if it tastes a little salty, this will cancel out the fact that you're adding a ton of unseasoned beef and noodles at the end.  When you're comfortable with the finished product, pour out the broth through a colander into a medium (2 gallon) stockpot to remove the large solids, then pour back to your large pot and, in the process, strain through a strainer lined with cheesecloth.

This is what was left of those bones.  What was once collagen is now a delicious gelatin dissolved into the soup base, good for strengthening your nails and making your soup deliciously rich and unctuous.  Word of the day!

If you're impatient, go ahead and continue to the next step.  Go on, do it.  I won't judge you.  But if you can afford to wait a day, you can let the soup base cool down, and have all of the fat rise up to the top for you to scrape off and discard.  If you did things right, this broth will have enough gelatin to choke a horse, and will look like it should be served in a small glass bowl at the hospital.  It would probably make the patients feel better, I tell you what.

This is the soup, cooled down with fat removed.  It is not moving at all in this picture.

When ready, assemble pho bowls.  This is where you can screw up and get yourself in trouble.  What happens next is a bit of cooking (and thermodynamics) magic, wherein raw meat is instantly cooked by pouring scalding hot broth all over it.  So you want the meat to be paper-thin, and you need for there to be enough thermal mass between the broth, the noodles, and the bowl to ensure that the meat gets cooked.  How much mass?  Well, I could get out my heat transfer book and tell you to within a few ounces, or we could just go with "a lot of broth", which is a slightly less scientific but still valid answer.

Slice your raw beef of choice as thin as you can get it.  A meat slicer comes in handy.  Shoot for something the thinness of deli roast beef.  Before slicing, chill the meat for 15-60 minutes: more if you have a real slicer, less if you're going at it by hand like some kind of tissue dissection.  Either way, set it aside and let it warm up a bit.

Got a meat slicer?  Hope so.  If not, talk up your butcher and see if they can cut it like this.  Also, most Asian grocers carry pre-sliced beef round in the frozen section, ready to go specifically for this purpose

Heat the pho broth to a boil, and prep your noodles.  Get two pots going - one with just water for the noodles, one with the broth.  Follow the directions on the noodle package, which will basically tell you to soak in hot water for 15 minutes, rinse, and then throw into a pot for a few minutes, until cooked.

Prep your sprouts and noodles

Heat up some bowls in the microwave, ensuring they are plenty warm before you start.  You really want to get a lot of heat into this, so the meat cooks.  Put a serving of noodles into the bowls.  Next, throw in bean sprouts, which you can cook for 30 seconds in your noodle water to take out some of the raw flavor, and warm them up.  Place in the bowl, or on the garnish plate.

Now add your meat - place the thin strips over the top of the noodles.  Pour the boiling broth over and watch the magic... the meat will cook instantly as you pour, turning from red to gray.

Prep for this really cool process by laying out the raw meat over the cooked noodles.  Then just pour on the boiling broth...

...and watch the fun!  Want to see it again?

Before...

...after.

Serve your pho with a garnish plate consisting of cilantro, bean sprouts, jalapeno slices, and Thai basil.  Also set out hoisin sauce and sriracha (not homemade, sorry) to pour in.  Now savor every bit of your hard work, or that of the person you bribed into making this for you.

And with that, I'm tired.  I'm going to bed.

Yum Woon Sen (Chile Lime Glass Noodles)

My first encounter with chile lime noodles was at a vegan food market, where it was framed as a gluten-free, animal byproduct-free meal.  As I ate it, I thought "this would be much better with some animal byproducts in it."  But all of the recipes I found were somewhat bland, Americanized versions of this dish.

Enter the real deal - yum woon sen, which is a Thai salad using mung bean noodles.  You've probably seen these before - they start off pale white, and when you cook them they turn translucent, earning them the name "glass noodles".  They're fairly easy to find, and not to be mixed up with rice vermicelli, which will cook up white, and though they are the same diameter, that's about all they have in common.  Glass noodles are chewy and have a much more neutral flavor, making them perfect for this dish.  And the Thais don't mess around with the whole animal byproduct thing - they thrown in fried, dried shrimp, and often ground pork (which I didn't add here, to try just the standard dried shrimp version).

In addition to getting to buy two new ingredients I had never purchased before, which is always fun, this dish surprised me by how easily it came together.  You don't really cook anything, in the traditional sense.  You basically just soak the noodles in boiling water, then crisp up the dried shrimp and peanuts, and toss everything together.  I was waiting for the stir-fry step the first time I made it, but it never came.  The end result was very healthy and fresh as a result, so now I see why this dish became popular.

Yum Woon Sen (aka Chile Lime Glass Noodles)
From ThaiTable.com

• 5-6 sprigs cilantro
• 1 2 ounce (dry) bundle mung bean noodles (aka glass noodles, clear noodles)
• 1/4 cup dried shrimp
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon fried garlic
• 1-2 limes
• 1/2 sliced onion
• 1/2 cup peanuts
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 3 Thai chili pepper
• 1 cup cut Chinese Celery, or regular celery if you can't find Chinese

If you can't find the Chinese celery above, just use regular celery.  But do at least keep the tops

This single bundle is all you need for the recipe posted here.  Don't get carried away, it will throw off the balance of ingredients

Rinse your vegetables well, and chop them to the right sizes.  They won't end up being cooked, so it has to be bite-sized and ready to go.

Take one of the 2 oz bundles from the noodle pack, and place in a large bowl with boiling hot water for 6 minutes. Strain the noodles and drain, then pour the noodles into a large mixing bowl and cut them with scissors randomly to make the strands easier to serve and eat.  Cut the Chinese celery into 1 ½ inch pieces. Slice onion, top to bottom to get crescent pieces. Chop cilantro and chili peppers.  If making your own, make the fried garlic by placing 6 cloves of garlic in a microwave-safe bowl and cover with 1-2 tbsp neutral oil, then microwave on high for up to 2 minutes, 30 seconds in 30 second increments until nicely browned and fragrant.

If using raw peanuts, fry peanuts in 1 teaspoon of oil over low to medium low heat until light brown and cooked, about 5-7 minutes. Remove peanuts and set aside. Fry the dried shrimp over medium heat until crispy and brown, about a minute, depending on the size of your shrimp. When the shrimp turns whitish, remove from heat and set aside.

Dry-fry the dried shrimp - this was a new one for me.  I found these in the refrigerated section of the Asian grocery store

Make the sauce / dressing - 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, 5 tablespoons of lime juice, and 1/2 tsp (or less) of sugar.  It should be more sour than salty; you should also take into account how salty the shrimp are. The role of sugar here is to round the flavors.

Add a tablespoon of fried garlic to the noodles and mix them. Fried garlic gives the noodles flavor. Add 5 tablespoons of the dressing to the noodles and mix well, reserving the last tablespoon to add only as necessary. Add the peanuts, dried shrimp, onion, Chinese celery, chili peppers and cilantro to the noodles. Toss well and taste. You may need more dressing, depending on water content of the noodles and the concentrations of your seasonings.

Toss all ingredients to combine, and you're done!  Minimal cooking necessary

Pad See Ew (Soy Sauce Noodles) and Homemade Sriracha

Pad See Ew is one of those ubiquitous Thai dishes you always see hidden on a Thai restaurant menu.  You've got your red and green curries, your Pad Thai, maybe some Pad Prik King or Gai Himmaparn, and this.  It's easy to translate - "pad" means stir-fried, and "see ew" means soy sauce.  Not much left to the imagination.  And the ingredient list essentially doesn't disappoint - noodles, meat, a few other things, and soy sauce.  Ah, but not just any soy sauce, as we will get to shortly.  It's been influenced by the Chinese, which explains why they're using the phrase "see ew", a Southern Chinese term for soy sauce, and also why Chinese broccoli is used here but in basically no other Thai staple dish I've yet come across.  I tried making this a number of times a few years ago with mixed success, then I went off into a cave and thought about what I did wrong, then looked up a ton of different recipes, and finally I took a nap.  When I woke up I assembled this new one.

Restaurant-quality.  Not something I throw out lightly.  And it's not often that people tell me to quit my day job and open a restaurant after dinner.  But that happened when I made these soy sauce noodles, after my adjustments to the recipe, my ingredients, and my process in order to best capture the flavors and textures of this dish.  Every bit of this is a spot-on copy of the best soy sauce noodles I have ever eaten which, if you haven't done so, I highly recommend you try.  I will make it a point to comment on where I have made tweaks, and what is a critical detail in making this dish.  Don't cut corners, look for the right ingredients, and you'll pull through.


Pad See Ew (Soy Sauce Noodles)
Adapted heavily from RealThaiRecipes.com

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon thinly sliced shallot
• 1/2 cup pork (or chicken), thinly sliced and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup wide rice noodles, FRESH (dried is just not going to cut it if you want the real deal)
• 1 generous cup chinese broccoli
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbsp black soy sauce
• 2 tbsp white soy sauce
• 1 tbsp white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder

First, gather your ingredients.  This may take some time - you need to find shallots, Chinese broccoli, and things called 'white' and 'black' soy sauce.  I know what you're thinking: you've got some 'black' soy sauce already, so what the heck is white soy sauce?  Well, you are wrong.  If you have soy sauce, you have 'white' soy sauce.  Or 'light' soy sauce, which has nothing to do with 'low sodium' soy sauce.  'Black' aka 'dark' aka 'sweet' soy sauce is made by adding sugar or molasses to the soy beans before fermentation, and lends a strong sweetness and a thick consistency to the finished product.  It is aged longer than the light soy sauce, and is less salty.  It is the primary ingredient in Pad See Ew, so if you can't find it locally, order it before you make this dish.  I recommend Healthy Boy brand if you can find it.  Let's take a look at these products:

Various soy sauces.  From left to right: a) low/less sodium, sometimes called "lite", not to be confused with b) "light" or "white" soy sauce (basically just regular soy sauce), c) Thai "black" soy sauce (siew dam in Thai) aka "sweet" soy sauce, which is essentially the same as d) Chinese "dark" soy sauce

Since you're using fresh noodles, which you can purchase at the Asian grocery store, separate them from each other, and place them on a plate.  Now, if yours were like mine, you got them refrigerated, and they're a big stuck together wad that doesn't look like people food - it looks like a bunch of squid.  I tried warming in the microwave and ended up getting as far as separating the rolls from each other, then giving up and cutting them into what would later become small rice pillows.  But next time I will soak them in cold water (cold to prevent further cooking), then coax them apart gently and dry them separately from each other.

They may look like squids, but they are in fact rice noodles, all bunched together.  Soak in cold water to unravel them.

If you absolutely can't find these and end up using dried, boil them for 6 minutes, drain in cold water, and rinse 2-3 times until fully chilled.  RIGHT BEFORE cooking, remove them to colander to drain for about 1 minute.  Don’t let them sit out to dry.

Cut the Chinese Broccoli stems at an angle so they cook easier, into about 2″ (5cm) long pieces towards the top, and smaller at the stems.  Cut on a bias for nice looking pieces. Make sure to clean well.

Heat a large nonstick saute pan on the highest heat you've got.  When sufficiently hot, add the oil and swirl to coat.  Add the garlic and shallots, and fry until lightly browned and fragrant, about 15-20 seconds.

Add the pork (or chicken) and fry until cooked through. Keep stirring so the garlic doesn’t burn.

Now add the noodles.  Don't worry about the other ingredients, we'll get there.  Keep stirring so they don’t stick.  Add the soy sauces, sugar and white pepper. Mix well.  Your goal here is to infuse the soy sauce flavor into the noodle but not into the veggies or egg.  So stir this around, let it absorb into the noodles, and continue.

Let the soy sauce get into those noodles

Crack the egg into the pan on top of the oil. Scramble in the pan and let sit until solid.  Break up with a spatula.

Add the Chinese Broccoli, and mix well. You may need to add a little bit of water so everything cooks and doesn’t stick.  Don’t add so much that the noodles get clumpy though - maybe around 1 teaspoon at a time.  As soon as broccoli is cooked, turn off heat and plate immediately.

Dish out and serve with soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, chili powder and white pepper so you can flavor to your taste preference at the table.

Note: If cooking more than one serving, cook them one at a time. If you cook too many noodles in the pan, you'll get a big sticky glob.

Homemade Chili-Garlic Sauce (Sriracha)

If you have a blender and 2 minutes, you can make this.  Put 8 red jalapenos, 2 cloves of garlic, and 1 tsp salt into the blender.  You may want to do obvious things like take the stems off your peppers and maybe peel the skin from the garlic, but only if you want this to be, you know, edible.  Once blended, pour this mix into a jar and top with 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar - enough to cover the pepper mix.  Let sit for a few minutes, and you're good to go!  Should keep basically indefinitely.

Hong Kong-Style Beef with Udon Noodles

I tend to stir-fry over any other form of cooking, because I like those flavors and the dishes come together quickly.  I'm always on the lookout for new variations on my dishes, as well as simple recipes that make my stir-frying lifestyle a bit easier.   So when I randomly stumbled on this recipe from Wegmans, I hung onto it to make one day.  And a mere 6 years later, I finally checked it out.  I'm not sure why I waited so long - it's great, not terribly difficult, and makes a mountain of food.  Plus, I had never cooked with mushroom flavored soy sauce before, and any time I get to use a new ingredient is a good day.

You'll end up with about 4 servings, though I pass no judgment on how many people this will end up feeding :)

This dish tastes similar to what you would get from any of the mongolian BBQ restaurants scattered around the country, but it's probably more healthy since you know what went into it, and probably also about a third of the cost.  We went all out - NY strip instead of beef sirloin - but you could use the proposed cut of beef with great results.  Also, my friends suggested adding some mushrooms next time, which I would probably add (in small quantities to avoid screwing up the cooking process) along with the meat.

For this recipe, I only modified the sequencing of the cooking process, and also removed store-branded products from the list to replace them with actual names.  If you buy these ingredients from your average asian grocery store (and they are all commonly found there), you'll probably pay 25-50% of what you would pay at a standard American megamarket.  And that assumes they would even have some of this stuff, such as mushroom-flavored soy and frozen udon.  Don't bother being clever and substituting things like spaghetti or regular soy - it won't be the same experience.

Hong Kong-Style Beef with Udon Noodles

from Wegmans magazine

• 1 lb beef sirloin, sliced thinly across the grain
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 pkgs (6.98 oz each) frozen udon noodles, thawed
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp mushroom flavored soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 8 oz bean sprouts
• 1 bunch green onions, trimmed, cut in thin strips 2-2 1/2 inches long (about 1 cup)
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp fresh ginger root, peeled, sliced thin
• 1/2 large onion, peeled, 1/4-inch slices (about 1 cup)

Place beef in small bowl.  Add water, 1 tbsp at a time, working it in with your hands until the water is absorbed into beef.  Sprinkle cornstarch over the beef and work in with your hands to coat all the pieces.  You're doing this so that you get a nice crispy coating to the meat; it is not 100% necessary, but an interesting variant I've seen before, notably in many of P.F. Chang's beef dishes (their mongolian beef in particular - I have a recipe if anyone wants it).

Loosen the noodles by hand and set them aside.

Mix oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sugar in a small bowl, and set aside.

Here's all of the prepped ingredients.  In retrospect, this recipe was slightly more involved than I expected

Blanch the sprouts and green onion in large pot of boiling salted water 5 seconds; drain and set aside.  Why?  Because you're going to put them in at the very end of the cooking, and you want to take the bite out of the green onions without overcooking them.  Is it a senseless waste of energy?  Maybe, but you always follow the recipe the first time.

The blanched sprouts and green onions, after shocking in ice water.

Heat your pan until it's as hot as it's going to get.  Once the pan is heated, drizzle the oil around the sides of stir-fry pan, then immediately add the beef, ginger, and onion slices.  Don't wait too long or you'll burn the oil - it's a temperature game (you want the pan rocket hot, the oil below 375 F so it won't oxidize and become toxic [and here's another, more scientific link from J. American Science], and the meat as hot as you can get it without burning the oil).  Now stir-fry for 3-4 min.  I did this in two batches, and you should too - don't crowd the pan!

Add the beef, but leave plenty of room so that you have enough heat to cook everything quickly.  Better to do 2 batches correctly than screw everything up at once

This is about as much as you should have in your pan.  Any more and you won't be stir-frying, you'll be steaming / boiling while the meat gets dried out.

This is half the batch.  Notice the brown color on there, from the Maillard reaction.

Add noodles; stir fry about 1 min.  Add sauce; stir fry 30 seconds, until heated through.  Try to fold rather than stirring, so you don't break up the noodles too much.  Add sprouts and green onions to pan.  Stir fry briefly to heat through and blend. Serve.

Toss the noodles together with the sauce and meat, and then add the sprouts and greens

The finished udon noodles, served with chinese broccoli