Adventures in Ramen

First of all, I have to share this with you. I bought more baby bok choy for super cheap at T&T last week, and as I was cutting it and cleaning it to put in this soup I'm about to tell you about, I came across a nice little surprise:


Yes, it's a nice juicy caterpillar! It was dead. But it totally grossed me out to the point where I had to chuck out the rest of the head.

Anyway, on this trip to T&T (I went to the bigger store at Surrey Central), in addition to buying bok choy, I wanted some soup. I love ramen. I know I should not, but there you go. There is a TON of ramen and ramen-like instant noodle packages at T&T it's almost ridiculous. I hardly knew what to choose because I wasn't used to any of the brands other that Sapporo Ichiban, and that was 99¢/package and there was stuff there that was way cheaper. I went for some that was 39¢/package, made by this company from Thailand. The noodles are called Mama something, the something being in the Thai language that I obviously don't read. But this is basically the deal:


Inside the package with the noodles were 3 seasoning packs. One was a powder, one was a paste, and one was marked chili powder. The paste had a shrimpy scent to it, which made sense because it was a package of shrimp-flavoured noodles. I tossed the chili powder.

This is the soup I made, with shrimp and caterpillar-free bok choy:


I will never buy Sapporo Ichiban again! This was great. There was a bit of heat in it, and it did not have a salty fake taste to it like other ramen. This tasted like a more "authentic-ish" broth. The noodles were better, too.

And at 39¢ you can't go wrong, really. I have two more packages in the pantry, one is chicken.

And I think I'll be giving bok choy a break for a while...

Cooking with Kylie: Wonton Soup

All right, after last week's dreary chicken noodle soup, I decided to use some of the left over stock for wonton soup. I just love wontons and wonton soup! And luckily, Kylie's wonton recipe is one of the best I've ever made. You can find the recipe for the wontons here; it's the same one that appears in this post.

When I made this batch of wontons, I saved myself a lot of hassle by whizzing the ingredients all up in the food processor. This was most excellent. Again, I used my #100 cookie scoop, which is about 1 tsp, to easily fill the wonton wrappers.

Because I knew beforehand that the stock needed help, I was able to tweak it so it was flavourful - and I did a damned awesome job, if I do say so myself. I made half a recipe and got two meals out of it.

Prawn Wonton Soup (adapted by me from Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking, page 46)

1/2 bunch of bok choy
3 cups Chinese chicken stock
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sake
2 tbsp oyster sauce
green onions, sliced, for garnish

wontons

Simmer everything except the bok choy & green onions for a few minutes. I boiled the wontons in a separate pot because I didn't want a starchy soup. When wontons are done, add to soup with the bok choy & simmer for a minute. Serve with green onions.
The chicken noodle soup failure was a good learning experience, because this soup was far more flavourful than the chicken noodle soup. In fact, it was fantastic! The wontons were also fan-fracking-tastic! It is so worth it to make homemade wontons, I think.

So this was another winning Kylie recipe!

Cooking with Kylie: Prawn WonTons

I adore a good wonton, so it was only a matter of time before I made one of Kylie's recipes for these wonderful meat-filled noodles. What attracted me to this recipe for Prawn Wontons with Spring Onion, Ginger, and Vinegar dressing was the lightness of it: prawn wontons with a simple vinaigrette sounded like comfort food without the heaviness often associated with comfort foods.

Once again, I was not disappointed.

The recipe for this dish is HERE.

Here's how it went.

First of all, I made the dressing, which was easy-peasy. It had an ingredient in it I'd never used before called kecap manis. From what I gathered, this is a condiment similar to soy sauce, but in addition to having soy sauce in it, it also has molasses. It's a little thicker than soy sauce, but it has a richer, more complex flavour. It was really good. The dressing was delicious, and I could see a version of it being used in other dishes as well as with these wontons.

Wontons are easy to make but do take a bit of patience. Again with this recipe, I halved the ingredients, and so I used 150g of my medium shrimp that I usually have in the freezer. To fill the wrappers, I used my #100 cookie scoop, which is about 1 tsp. Using the scoop makes wonton so much easier.

I didn't shape mine in Kylie's way, but I don't think that matters too much. After boiling them, they were ready to be bathed in dressing!This was delicious, absolutely delicious! I was kicking myself for only making 1/2 a recipe because I wanted MORE! Once again, this was very simple to make & put together, just as the cookbook title suggests. Another awesome Kylie recipe!

Cellophane Noodle Salad

I had a lot of left overs from the Hot Sour Salty Sweet meal, and I hate stuff withering to waste in my fridge. I had a bunch of cellophane noodles (AKA bean threads) left over from the salad rolls I made as well as a whole bunch of herbs from the herb and salad plate; I also had a lot of lime wedges left over, and I had a decent amount of the Must Have Table Sauce (nuoc cham) sitting in the fridge, too. As I was wondering what to do with this all, I happened upon a recipe in HSSS for Cellophane Noodle Salad with Oyster Mushrooms (p. 144). In reading it through, I got the idea to use up my leftovers in a similar salad.

Cellophane Noodle Salad with Chicken & Herbs

1 chicken breast, cooked, cooled and diced
1 bunch cellophane noodles/bean threads, cooked according to package directions, cooled & snipped into manageable lengths
1 cup chopped mixed herbs: I used mint, cilantro, and basil
2 sliced green onions
juice of half a lime
1/3 recipe nuoc cham (recipe to follow)

Toss everything together gently in a large bowl.

This was fantastic! The flavours were so bright and fresh! My tongue practically danced!

Now, for the nuoc cham, or Vietnamese Must Have Table Sauce (p. 28 HSSS), adapted by me

1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp sugar
1 clove garlic, grated or minced

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Enjoy!