Steamed Braised Noodles
Steamed braised noodles are a very classic homestyle dish from southern Henan, with both meat and vegetables, simple and easy to learn. Generally, beginners only need one hour to complete.
Ingredients and Tools
- Pork belly
- Celery
- Fresh noodles (must be the thinnest; if your nearby market doesn’t have them, refer to making braised noodles)
- Scallion, ginger, garlic
- Cooking oil (peanut oil is best)
- Light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, cooking wine, salt, five-spice powder
- Steamer with a basket insert
- Wok The following ingredients are optional for those with some cooking基础 or extra time
- Sichuan peppercorns
- Dried red chili
- Green pepper
Measurements
- Celery two medium stalks
- Pork belly 350g
- Noodles 500g
- Scallion 10cm
- Garlic 5 cloves
- Ginger slices 20g
- Green pepper 2
- Dried red chili 3
- Sichuan peppercorns 20
- Salt 10g
- Five-spice powder 5g
- Light soy sauce 15ml
- Dark soy sauce 10ml
Steps
- Remove the skin from the pork, cut into thin slices 2 cm 6 cm 0.5 cm, set aside
- Remove celery leaves, cut off 2cm from the root end, then split lengthwise in half and cut into 2cm pieces, set aside
- Peel garlic and chop into small pieces, slice scallion into 0.2cm thin slices, julienne ginger, prep
- Heat the wok until smoking, pour in 3ml cooking oil to coat the wok, then pour out the excess
- Add cooking oil again, add pork slices, scallion, ginger, garlic, dried red chili, stir-fry 1 minute, keep stirring evenly
- Add cooking wine, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, stir-fry another 1 minute
- Add 500ml hot water. Cover and simmer 3 minutes
- Add celery and green pepper, season with salt and five-spice powder, cover and continue to simmer 3 minutes, then turn off heat
- Add 1000ml water to the steamer, bring to a boil; once steaming, spread noodles evenly on the basket, place in the pot, steam 15 minutes
- After noodles are steamed, remove and use chopsticks and ruthless iron hands to loosen on the board, cool at room temperature for further processing
- Put the noodles into the vegetable pot and mix; mix by holding chopsticks in one hand and a spatula in the other, flipping the vegetables over the noodles, mixing is done when all noodles are evenly colored
- Put the mixed noodles back on the full basket, steam again for 10 minutes, turn off heat
Notes
- Technical summary
- When cutting pork, you can ask the market vendor to help; from experience, the best time to ask is after it has been cut but before you pay
- When cooking for the first time, you can prep ingredients in advance to avoid panic; after you are熟练, you can do things in parallel
- For both steaming sessions, try to loosen the noodles as much as possible to prevent clumping after steaming. If the noodles are too long, you can pull them apart to make later mixing and serving easier
- When removing the steamed noodles, try to be gentle to avoid flipping the basket and letting noodles touch water
- Beer pairs even better! If you follow this guide and find issues or improvements, please submit an Issue or Pull request.