Cooking & Conversation: Fried Noodles- Chinese Style-Cooking with Yatzi

My friend, Yatzi, and I got together to cook Chinese Fried Noodles.

I have known Yatzi for about two years. She is one of the best cooks I know.

She is also at the top of my husband's favorite cooks list. Previously, she has graciously invited us to her home to enjoy authentic Chinese cuisine and to share in some of her Chinese holidays.

I hope you try this dish. Fried noodles are common throughout East and Southeast Asia. There are many varieties, cooking styles, and ingredients used. This recipe has been changed to accommodate the style of noodles we used, but he flavor is authentic.

Ingredients:

Pasta 1/2 of 13.25 oz. box. (We used Dreamfields angel hair pasta)
1/2 lb. sliced boneless, skinless chicken breast
1/4 lb. shrimp
3 pieces imitation crab
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 yellow onion
2 medium sized carrots
5 cloves garlic
Fresh chives
Vegetable oil
Chicken broth
Dark soy sauce
Sesame oil
Corn starch
Salt
Pepper

We have come up with measurements for this recipe. Yatzi does not usually use a recipe for this dish. She can come up with the correct amounts by looking at the soy sauce, sesame oil, and chicken broth. We also used both red and green bell peppers as we had both on hand. The chives came from my garden, so we added those also. Use what you have on hand, and try combinations of your own. Have fun cooking this dish. It is delicious.

My friend, Yatzi, and I.

---History of Noodles---

At sunshunfuk.com, Chinese noodles have a long and well-established history. It was recorded as early as in Eastern Han Dynasty, which was over 1,900 years ago, that noodles were originally called "cakes", with "water boiled cake" being the ancestor of Chinese noodles. According to Liuxi's "Shi Ming" ("Meaning of Names"), "cake" was a generic name of any food made out of the combination of water and flour, including water boiled flour strips or flour blocks.

From the initial period of Eastern Han Dynasty, Southern and Northern Wei Jing Dynasties to the later Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were written records about noodles throughout the history of China. There was not a unique name of noodles in early times: in addition to the commonly used "water boiled noodle", "boiled cake" and "soup cake", the food was also called "shuiying bing" ("water concoction cake"), "bu tuo", "bo tuo" and so forth. It was not until Sung Dynasty did "mian" ("noodle") become the formal name of the food.

Chinese noodles is the ancestor of all noodles. They are not only world-renowned but also exert far-reaching impact on noodle culture round the globe. Spaghetti was the example of a transformation of Chinese noodles: it was Marco Polo, an Italian diplomatic agent, who learnt the techniques from China in Yuan Dynasty and let the people evolve and thus had the new type of noodle created in the country. Another example in 1912, the traditional techniques of making Chinese noodles were brought to Yokohama, Japan, from China and Japanese ramen was then introduced. Japanese ramen was initially called "Dragon Noodle" implying it was a food eaten by Chinese people-The people who are descendant of Dragon.

Assemble all ingredients.

Boil water for the pasta
and add salt before cooking.

Add pasta to boiling water.

Stir pasta. Put lid on pot.
Turn heat off and leave in pot for 5 minutes.

Pasta will be Al Dente.

Pasta that is cooked “Al dente”, literally meaning “to the tooth”, is soft but holds shape,
chewy but not brittle and well separated but starchy enough for the sauce to stick.

Drain pasta and run cold water
over it, so it won't stick.

It never hurts to do a taste test.
They are perfect.

Season chicken strips with pepper and salt.

Add a splash of soy sauce.

And a dash of sesame oil.

Add about 1/2 teaspoon corn starch.

Stir together and
set aside.

Prepare shrimp by removing shells.

Rinse shrimp under cold water and
set aside.

Cut the 3 pieces of imitation crab in half.

Slice the red bell pepper into strips.
What a beautiful color!

Also slice the green bell pepper into long even strips.

Slice the yellow onion into long strips.

Peel 2 medium carrots.

Slice the carrots on the diagonal.

Chop the fresh green chives into 1 inch pieces.

Mince 5 cloves of garlic.

First chop the garlic roughly. Make a series of horizontal cuts on the clove (separating it into thin slices), then a series of vertical cuts (separating it into thin sticks). Then dice the sticks.

Mince the chopped garlic by chopping it with a rocking motion: Keep the tip of the knife on the cutting board and move the handle up and down.

Stop every few strokes and use the blade of the knife to draw the garlic pieces back into a neat pile before continuing. Scrape off the garlic that has stuck to the side of the knife blade, too.