Thursday, November 3, 2011

Get your Shanghai Noodles on

Some of you will know I work with international students, which means I get to eat delicious food from all over the place as part of my "work". I know, pretty great, right? I'm inspired to cook more Asian style food at home, but laziness often prevents me from getting the required ingredients.

Well not last night. Soph R over at the Fountainside inspired me to cook up some Northern Chinese style noodles [Zha jiang mien for the Chinese among us] and they were just as I remember eating at Shanghai Night in Ashfield - so salty, so good.

I had to do a little bit of creative substitution, as our local Asian grocer only had Japanese soy bean paste, and I used Japanese rice wine instead of Chinese rice wine. But it all turned out fine.

Here's the original recipe, from Em's blog.




The cucumber is a must as it cuts through the incredible saltiness of the pork mince.

Also, recently I cooked Pip's uber famous teriyaki chicken. Guess what? The top secret ingredient is potato starch. I know, who'd have thought!

Anyone got a secret recipe I should know? I like cheap, easy and cheerful.

3 comments:

onlinesoph said...

Yum! Looks great Soph. Well done, and I'm sure the Japanese rice wine would have been a nice edition!!

by the way, my friend's name is Em, short for Emmelyn. Just thought I'd clarify :)

soph said...

Oh, sorry soph! Will change it.

em said...

your zha jiang mien looks great Soph G :) miso paste is a genius substitution! and yep, can't skimp on the cucumber :)