They say noodles originated from China.
Nowadays, most Chinese style noodles are not home made - for home cooks. Even when we do dumplings, we can buy the dumpling skins.
However, home made noodles are nicer even though they are time consuming.
There are a lot of varieties of Chinese noodles, this time, I started off some very simple water and flour dough, and used the same dough to make some stretch noodles and pot stickers.
400g flour
300ml water
a pinch of salt
From a soft dough, knead till elastic and let it rest for an hour or so, till it's more pliable.
Dust the bench top with dry flour and roll the dough into a long stick, cut small chunks out and roll out the dumpling skins. The skins should roll out when turning around, making sure the outer sides are thinner. Add in the filling (pork mince, Chinese chive, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, salt, pepper, light soy sauce and a bit of rice wine) and make small dumplings. Dust more dry flour at the bottom and let it sit.
It is time consuming to make the dumplings, especially making the skin as I go, making the dumplings.
I have explained how to cook pot stickers in earlier posts.
I left 1/3 of the dough for the noodles, just roll out as thin as I can, both sides dusted with dry flour, and cut, stretch. Dust in more dry flour.
The youngest wasn't a big fan of pot stickers, so I just made some simple noodle soup with peas and egg for her.
When I told the children about this month's Daring Cook's challenge, they rejoiced...
They love their noodles...
This month, Steph from StephFood challenged us to come up with some simple noodles dish, out of our own food culture, making noodles from scratch. She has attached some recipes of different types of noodles here.
Our family, most of the hand made noodles are fettuccini or linguini, so this is the take one of this wonderful challenge:
Fettuccini with Giant Meat Balls
The Meat Balls - Rissoles
Beef mince
Sausage mince
onion - minced
carrot - grated
white bread crumbs
salt & pepper
mixed dry herbs
egg
Ground white pepper
Mix the ingredients and rolled it in bread crumbs, this is the same simple recipe for rissoles and we use it as big meat balls with passata,, parsley, bocconcini.
Now for the fettucini.
That's the simple part as we make them at least once a month - I wish we had more time to make more of them.
300g 00 flour or plain flour mixed with 1/3 semolina
3 large eggs
a pinch of salt
bit of extra virgin olive oil.
Make a well with the flour and salt and crack in the eggs.
Mix and form the dough, knead, wrap in cling film and rest the dough in the fridge for about an hour.
Use our trust worthy pasta maker...
dust with some plain four and I usually hang them up before cooking in slightly salted boiling water.
Drain in colander, and drizzle some extra virgin olive oil.
Serve with the giant meat balls.
Grate some parmesan cheese - happy children!
I've made more noodles during the challenge month, and will post later.
I love mud crab, especially the Darwin mud crabs.
They are in season now and very nice...
We always have it in the restaurant the very common ginger and spring onion version over noodles, so I made some today at home.
For noodles, just used the pasta method, 200g plain flour with 2 eggs, a pinch of salt and used my pasta maker....
For the Crab:
2 cloves of garlic
2 Knobs of ginger, juvienned.
1 small bunch of spring onions – cut in 1” length stripes.
1 whole mud crab
Salt
Pepper
¼ cup Light soy sauce
1 tbsp Rice wine – Cantonese style, bit like sake.
Sugar to taste
2 tbsp Tapioca
Oil
Home made noodles – boiled, to serve
Freeze mud crab for 30 minutes to num it, cut open and clean.
Chop mud crab in chunks, lightly coat with 2/3 of tapioca flour and pepper. Set up wok with plenty of oil, to deep fry.
Take crabs out as soon as the colour slightly turn. Reduce amount of oil in wok.
Put ginger and garlic in the wok in high heat to brown slightly.
Add crab back to wok, stir well, add soy, salt and rice wine, use rest of tapioca and a bit of water to make a very thin paste, add to wok.
Add sugar and spring onion, and stir, cook for 2 minutes or till crab is just cooked.
Prepare in clay pot boiled noodles that have been drained.
Add crab on top of the noodles in the clay pot.
Mothers day today...
Hubby made pancakes for brekky... We had lunch out yesterday to avoid the rush and something simple today... as I got my Kaffir Lime tree and a persimmon... We digged the composting out of our bin and planted them... Amongst all the lime trees in Bunnings, I was happy to find the Kaffir Lime because I can use the leaves as well.... I was tossing between some fig trees but was hoping the cuttings from neighbour's big fig tree will live... otherwise, I will go back for a fig - I love it, and love to cook with it...
Below is from the children... simple heart warming presents and they rememberred I like pink...
I was preparing some doughs from yesterday, what's a weekend without my "play" doughs...
One of them is the Roti dough, but then I sorta changed my mind... I'm making Chinese tonight, and maybe I should make spring onion pancakes - and what I end up with, is Spring Onion Roti... I stretched the doughs (I can't flip like the pros) as paper thin and fold up some spring onions in them, bit of canola oil and made up those little envelops...
And the other overnight dough is the Brioche dough, hmm, usually they don't need overnight proving... but I used sourdough starter - I'm bad am I - I must say, the yeast is still better, but hey, I wasn't happy with ciabatta yesterday and somehow... I came up with these... and to make things so not tradtional.. I even added a banana - I know I know, too many bananas. The children shaped the brioches, the older one made the bottom and little one made the top... so excuse the different shapes... and they even put on the egg wash... I do have little tart sheels, but it's just as easy to use the muffin tins...
And this is what they look like after second proving and 25 minutes baking in 180C oven.
For dinner tonight, I found some beef mince mixture from the "bao"s (Chinese buns) I made the week before in the freezer and decided it's better to get rid of it... It's a mixture of Beef, Onion, Parsley (not exactly chinese but hey it does taste alright) with Fish Sauce, Shaoxin Wine, Light Soy, Ginger and bit of sugar. I decided the family might be sick of yeasty buns, so I made dumplings - family like panfied version, so in the pan they go.... sit the dumplings in a lighly oiled pan, and watch it sizzle to make them ready, traditionally you just need to add a bit of boiling water and close the lid, so the steam will cook the dumplings thoroughly... I made my own dumpling skin today, normally I was lazy and just buy dumpling skins - must say the hand made dumpling skins are so much better, however, I do need some lessons from dad!
I was preparing some doughs from yesterday, what's a weekend without my "play" doughs...
And the other overnight dough is the Brioche dough, hmm, usually they don't need overnight proving... but I used sourdough starter - I'm bad am I - I must say, the yeast is still better, but hey, I wasn't happy with ciabatta yesterday and somehow... I came up with these... 
For dinner tonight, I found some beef mince mixture from the "bao"s (Chinese buns) I made the week before in the freezer and decided it's better to get rid of it... It's a mixture of Beef, Onion, Parsley (not exactly chinese but hey it does taste alright) with Fish Sauce, Shaoxin Wine, Light Soy, Ginger and bit of sugar. I decided the family might be sick of yeasty buns, so I made dumplings - family like panfied version, so in the pan they go.... sit the dumplings in a lighly oiled pan, and watch it sizzle to make them ready, traditionally you just need to add a bit of boiling water and close the lid, so the steam will cook the dumplings thoroughly... I made my own dumpling skin today, normally I was lazy and just buy dumpling skins - must say the hand made dumpling skins are so much better, however, I do need some lessons from dad!
The rest of the dough, I made them into noodles - I wish I did it with the pasta maker! But I managed to roll them out really thinly and they are bit like papadelles' shape... however the dough hasn't got any eggs... It's just a simple thin sliced beef broth with bok choi and sliced birdeye chilly, spring onion and the flavour came from a bit of fish sauce and salt.... some home made oil chilly sauce to make it even hotter...
