Taro Noodle Soup

Julie’s second dish is a Taiwanese Taro Noodle Soup. I have never had a noodle soup with Taro. It is something new that I learnt here. The taro gives the noodle soup added textures, soft and creamy.

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This is an easy meal to prepare at home. Julie added some fish balls in her noodle soup. You may substitute the fish balls with other meatballs like beef, chicken, squid, pork, etc.

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Ingredients

  • 1 large piece of Taro, peeled and cut to bite-size
  • 1 packet of vermicelli noodle
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • fish balls
  • lettuce, thinly sliced
  • a can chicken stock

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Chow Mien

Yvonne made a Chinese Fried Noodles (Chow Mien) in the Caring Place Community Kitchen due to the popularity of this dish in another community kitchen which I did not attend.

It looked like a daunting task to make this noodle because Yvonne used a lot of ingredients. But, when making it at home, you can simplify the recipe by using your favourite meat or seafood and vegetables.

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Yvonne served the Chow Mien in the wok itself because we could’nt find a platter big enough to hold the noodles.

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Ingredients

  • 2 packets of Chinese instant noodles
  • 2 sweet peppers, sliced
  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 2 inches of ginger, sliced
  • 3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 3 to 4 shallots, sliced
  • 10 large button mushrooms, cleaned with paper towel and sliced
  • 2 carrots, sliced into match sticks
  • a bunch of green onions, cut into 1 inch length
  • a bunch of cilantro, chopped, save some for garnishing
  • some bean sprouts
  • 1 packet of large prawns, with shell removed
  • fried shallots for garnishing
  • toasted sesame seeds for garnishing
  • chicken stock

Marinates and Sauces

  • Soy sauce
  • Oyster sauce
  • Mirin or rice wine
  • Fish sauce
  • Corn starch
  • Salt and Pepper

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Japchae (Korean Noodle)

Allie had been a good good friend of mine. Having stayed in Vancouver for a few years, she will be returning to Korea at end of this year. Before leaving, she invited Helen and I to her house for a authentic Korean homemade dinner. She showed us how to make Japchae, a very popular Korean noodle dish. The recipe is at the bottom of this blog entry.

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Allie also served some black rice which her husband brought all the way from Korea during his last visit. I have never see or heard of black rice until now. It tastes the same as the normal rice, looks different (of course) but have a rougher texture. It is known to have high nutritional value.

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Allie also made a Seaweed Tofu Beef Soup. Allie told us that this is very popular among Korean ladies. It did not occur to me to ask her then why it is popular among ladies only. Any Korean reader here knows why?

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She also prepared an Apple, Tomato, Romaine and Chicken Salad. She used Balsamic Vinegar as dressing. The chicken used is roasted chicken. I like this, more because of the apples used in it.

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Lastly Allie prepared some “Thousand Year Eggs”. This is not Korean but Chinese.

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I love the Japchae the most. It is kind of similar to the Chinese Dry Glass Noodle except that it uses a sweet sauce. Korean dishes commonly uses corn syrup and sesame seed oil which gives that sweetness in the dishes. There is quite a bit of steps in making this but it is worth the work. Try it out.

Despite her busy schedule preparing for the move home, she found the time to share this meal with us. I am going to miss having her around the neighborhood.

Here is the recipe for making Japchae.

Ingredients

  • Potato noodle, boiled for about 6 minutes and rinse in running cold water
  • Rice cake, boiled and rinsed in running cold water
  • Green, Red and Yellow sweet peppers, thinly sliced
  • Shiitake mushroom, thinly sliced
  • Beef, thinly sliced
  • Spinach, blanched
  • Seasonings include soy sauce, sesame oil, cooking syrup and brown sugar

Please click on the link below for the instructions.

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Shao-Zi Noodles

Shao-Zi Noodles is the second dish which Julie showed us in last week’s cooking club meeting. Julie prepared the dough ahead for making the noodles. She told us she used 4 cups of flour with 1.5 cups of water and some salt (probably 1 teaspoon) to make the dough for the noodle.

The star of this dish is the meat sauce. Julie told us that the meat sauce can be made in big batch and store in the refrigerator for a few days. The noodle dish can be prepared easily using the prepared meat sauce.

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Ingredients

  • 1 lb Lean ground pork
  • 1 lb spiced bean curd, diced in small pieces.
  • sweet bean sauce
  • soybean paste
  • hot bean paste
  • soy sauce
  • salt
  • sugar
  • corn starch
  • for decoration, thinly sliced carrot, cucumber or celery

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Pho (Vietnamese Noodle Soup)

Since everyone at home like Vietnamese Noodle so much, I thought I should try to make it at home. Last month, I went scouring for the ingredients to make the beef broth and found them in a Vietnamese grocery store along Kingsway (near Main). The Beef Flavoured Pho Soup Base costs $8.99 and is used to make 20 bowls of soup!

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The soup base had been sitting in the shelf for a long time because according to the cooking instructions, it takes over 2 hrs to make. Along with that, I was mulling over how is the family going to finish off 20 bowls of Pho soup. Anyway, I finally gotten down to making it over the long Easter weekend. I must say it was more successful than I anticipated. The soup was better than any we have tasted in Vietnamese Restaurants … well, according to everyone in my family anyway. We have chunkier meat which we felt tastes better than the thin sliced beef we were served in restaurants.

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You know what is the bad thing about this? We have been eating this for three consecutive meals (yesterday’s lunch and dinner and today’s lunch!) and we have quite a bit left! 🙂 I am certainly going to make it again but I will think of how I am going to give away some to friends.

Here are some interesting facts about Pho on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pho

Ingredients

  • 3 – 4 lbs of beef flank (or brisket)
  • 1 lb beef tendon — since I could not buy them, I got the marinated/cooked ones from T&T
  • 1 bulb onion
  • 2 piecese of ginger

I also bought 1/2 lb of beef tripe since Norm and Marc likes them. I also bought 1/2 lb of beef balls.

Please note, you need to have a 2 gallon pot to make the Pho soup.

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Beef and Noodles

Andrea showed us how to make the Beef and Noodle in our last Richmond Cooking Club. Andrea told us that she adopted the recipe from the Canadian Living magazine and that she makes this often for her family.

It is a variant of a dry rice noodle flavoured primarily with soya sauce. This is a simple and quick dish to make.

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Ingredients

  • 6 oz rice stick noodles
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 large cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 jalapeno pepper, sliced (optional)
  • 6 oz top sirloin grilling steak or inside round marinating steak, thinly sliced
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli or green beans
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce (or 1 tablespoon of fish and soy sauce)
  • 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
  • 1 cup bean sprouts
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or parsley
  • lime pieces

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Char Siew Wonton Noodle (Without the Wonton)

My mother’s menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it.
~ Buddy Hackett

Suanne and I had a big debate over how to name this dish. I mean, how can one call this a wonton noodle where there is no wonton. Anyway, it’s her dish and she gets to call it what she wants. The star of this simple dinner is the CHAR SIEW (roasted red pork). Suanne made the Char Siew herself. To make perfect char siew, you need pork shoulder butt. Suanne used some Thai made seasoning mix. She can’t recall where she bought it but should be in one of the many Asian market along Kingsway or Metrotown area (we hang around that place a lot because there is where I work, Arkensen and Nanzaro’s chinese school and our church). Here is the picture of the Roast Red Pork Seasoning Mix:

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Anyway, to cut to the chase (i.e. without showing you the whole roasting process because we did not take pictures), below is what the char siew looks like. I really like it a bit charred but trust me, it taste really GREAT.

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Now, hear this. You do NOT eat char siew like STEAK! They are to be sliced in bite size, like below. Here is a secret from Suanne … leave the slicing until the end or else everyone in the family will munch it all before the noodles is ready. Go, jot it down.

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