Some of you may be familiar with a Cantonese dish called yuk bang, which roughly translates into "pork pie." It's pretty much the Chinese version of meat loaf. But while meat loaf can be found on menus in both Southern and hipster diners, yuk bang is hardly ever served outside home. To call it rustic would be an overly generous. You mix ground pork with pickled mustard plant, splash on a bit of soy sauce, then press your ball of pork into a metal plate and steam it. As simple and unphotogenic as pork pie is, it tastes amazing mixed with white rice. 

In the absence of pickled mustard plant, and for leftovers that I wouldn't feel weird bringing to work, I turn to these minced pork and shiitake noodles.

If you have ever been to Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, or Japan, you may be familiar with a dish of minced pork ladled over a bowl of boiled noodles. It's pure comfort food whenever you're exhausted and need nourishment, stat. Like, when traveling on foot in a subtropical Asian city, or even after staring at a computer screen all morning.

The simplest preparation involves just minced pork, onions or shallots, scallions, all simmered in sake or Chinese rice wine.  I throw in finely chopped shiitake mushrooms for extra flavor (lately, using these ugly shiitakes.)  You can really use any kind of noodles, but I prefer soba for their ability to not become saturated by sauces.

As much as i love to cook, I never have time to plan weekday lunches. After a frazzled morning at the desk, trying to get just one more bit of work done, I am ravenous by 1 or 2pm. My lame attempts at breakfast (usually Wheatables and fruit gummies) do not suffice.

I storm out of the building in a mad search for anything edible on the street. Unfortunately, other than mediocre $10 sandwiches and faux-Mexican, there is nothing except Safeway and Whole Foods. So I go for supermarket soup. Soup is filling. Soup is warming. Soup is cheap (well, not at Whole Foods). But sooner or later, you get sick of Chunky Chicken Noodle and Spicy Southwestern Bean. I still craved a piping hot bowl of broth-and-protein in the early afternoon, but needed a change.

This week I decided to add a Chinese take-out touch to chicken noodle soup. And make a big batch on Sunday night. While I still like the hot and sour soup I posted two year ago, this one is much, much more filling. And if you are low on Asian pantry staples like canned bamboo shoots and lily buds, you can still make this. I went to the market and bought chicken breast, mushrooms, and scallions, et voilà. 

I worry a lot these days. Like everyone, I worry about how much longer this recession will last. I worry so many publications will fold that all freelancers will have to panhandle for survival. I worry nobody will pick up a real book anymore. The gloomy winter days aren't helping. Shanghai is so dreary I have not seen the sun in 3 weeks.

My eating habits are a good indication of my mood. When I'm cheery and light-hearted I'll fuss around with salads and labor-intenstive sweets. If I'm anxiety-ridden, comfort food is all I can stomach. 

So bring on the chicken noodle soup. Rather than the American version flavored with bay leaf and thyme, I decided to make a Sichuan-style broth with star anise, cinnamon, tangerine peel, and Sichuan pepper. (There will be a mild tingle from the peppercorn, to jazz things up.) The best part: you can shred leftover roast chicken, itself a cost-saver and recession favorite, and add it to the soup at the last minute. The simmering anise and cinnamon will make your kitchen smell good. And slurping the steamy chicken noodle soup will get you through these dark days.

It's hard for me to choose a favorite noodle, but in terms of cooking convenience, vermicelli rice noodles are hard to beat. You can throw them in a noodle soup, stir-fry them, or dip them in a hot pot. (And I will sooner give up lamb than rice noodles when I hot pot, which is saying ALOT.) Rice vermicelli will cook in no time, perfect if you're in a hurry or just plain lazy. 

Called mifen (米粉) in Mandarin and fensi (same characters) in Cantonese, these super-thin rice noodles are almost always sold dry. If you're making other meat and vegetable dishes, you can whip up a very basic stir-fried vermicelli with just onions, scallions, garlic, and ginger. Or if it's a one-dish meal you're after, add some shrimp, chicken, beef, or pork.  

To prep rice vermicelli for cooking, just soak them in cold water for 15 to 25 minutes, or in warmer water for under 10 minutes if you're in a hurry. (Careful not to oversoak.) Once you stir-fry your meats and vegetables, add the sauce and noodles and stir well for a few minutes until they dry up. (The crispy parts that stick to your pan are a bonus.)

Below is a very basic but flavorful recipe for stir-fried vermicelli. Feel free to elaborate!

Oh, I also love dipping stir-fried vermicelli in congee. Odd, yes, but don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

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Other noodles recipes to try:

Wonton noodle soup is one of the few dishes set very high standards for, almost to the point of obsession. Because of cravings for an ideal bowl of wonton noodle soup (and seeing my relatives), I have paid way too much for same day plane tickets to Hong Kong. When I get wontons that are all or mostly pork, I feel cheated. And I rarely visit wonton noodle stands outside of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, for fear of getting inferior versions.

Yes, it's rather compulsive behavior. But the behavior applies to any sort of a purist, whether the love is sushi, borscht, cocktails, or xiaolongbao. We all have certain foods we put on a pedestal.

If you can't get to Hong Kong, the next best cure for wonton lust is recreating the darn thing at home. After tinkering in the kitchen for over a year and a half, I have updated an older post on this very topic. For me, an ideal wonton noodle soup must include the following: fragrant broth consisting of pork and seafood umami flavor, springy al dente egg noodles, and wontons containing at least 50% shrimp.

Yesterday I cooked without water. Well, not completely without water, but with trickles from the faucet. When the trickles eventually stopped, I used purified stuff from the water cooler in our living room. To rinse food, boil noodles, wash dishes, everything. Trickles.

See, Jacob and I live in a brand new apartment, so new that construction hasn't even stopped. Anyone who has visited Beijing (or China) in the past 10 years will know that the entire city (and country) is over-dosing on construction. In order to clean up the air for the Olympics, the government had mandated that all construction projects stop by June 1. Well, that deadlines has now been pushed back to July 1. And I'm annoyed not only because the air is still dusty, but also because we get periodic electricity and water outages, both announced an unannounced.

According to a notice in the "lobby", the water outage was supposed to occur between 10pm and 6am. Fine, I thought. We go out to a bar at night, come back late, and try not to use the bathroom 'til morning. Then the water stops in the middle of the afternoon. Not very convenient when you're making curry laksa. Laksa paste, bird's eye chilli seeds, and raw shrimp juice are not things you want to leave unwashed from your hands.

Thank goodness for the purified water, though I did feel a small amount of guilt.

Remember when I wrote about the kaleidoscope of tofu available in China? Here's a couple I picked up today at the market:

The lighter colored pack is 豆干 (dòu gān), the super firm kind I like to use in dishes like caramelized tofu. The other was new to me, and intrigued me because the name on the packaging: 啤酒肉片 (píjiǔ ròupiàn) literally reads as "Beer Meat Slices." I know the character for "meat" in Chinese can also mean the flesh of any food, from pigs to pineapples to tofu. But the "beer" part I couldn't figure out, since it wasn't listed as one of the ingredients.

My search for quick vegetarian dishes continues. Going out 3 nights in a row with our vegetarian friends from London has convinced me that while it's a bit inconvenient to go meatless in China, it's not impossible. While I'm not considering becoming a strict vegetarian, my conscience dictates that eating more vegetable and grains and having meat only once or twice a week is better for good ol' planet Earth. (The conscience thing I can blame on Fast Food Nation, this Michael Pollan article, and having lived in gentrified Brooklyn, which probably has the highest concentration of vegetarians outside India and San Francisco.)

Pad See-Ew is a Thai noodle dish that can be made with meat or without.  (Some people call it Thai-Chinese, because the technique of stir-frying noodles came from Chinese immigrants.) It's a lot like the Cantonese chow hor fun, with thicker sauce and the addition of egg. I have had it countless times in Thai restaurants, but never thought to make at home until I came across Blazing Hot Wok's recipe from earlier this year. This dish has fewer ingredients than Pad Thai and is easier to make, perfect for those lazy "crap, I'm starving but my fridge is practically empty" days.

The first time I ever had dan dan mian was years ago in New York's East Village. It was one of those insanely hot and muggy July days, and my friend S and I were walking on St. Mark's Street, sweaty even in tank tops and skirts.

"Where do you want to have lunch?," I asked.

"Anywhere with AC," was the reply.

We ducked into the St. Mark's branch of Grand Sichuan and sure enough, there was a generous amount of AC, along with a particularly surly waitress. We ordered quickly just to get her to go away.

We ate about 4 or 5 dishes, but I don't remember any except the dan dan noodles and cold cucumber salad. I remember the dan dan noodles because they were some of the spiciest things I had ever tasted, at that point. I remember the cucumbers because, despite also being spicy, they tamed the heat in my mouth from the dan dan noodles.

I gulped about 4 or 5 glasses of water during the meal. The food was actually pretty good, but I, being a newbie to Sichuan food, couldn't fully appreciate the complexity of the Sichuan peppercorn. Years later, having had many 4-alarm Sichuan meals, I actually miss and crave the mala sensation (numbing spiciness) if I don't eat Sichuan for a week or more.

Oh, to be cooking again! Nothing feels better than being in your own kitchen after months of travel and eating out. Not that I mind eating out, but I love having full control over the ingredients, freshness, and healthiness of any given dish. Cooking also puts me into a serene zen-like state that staring at a huge menu cannot possibly do.

Tonight we had hot pot again, but instead of cooking noodles at the dinner table I chose instead to prepare some peanut sesame noodles beforehand. I added more peanut flavor than the Sichuan-style noodles usually have, and toned down the chili a bit. They are easy to whip up and can include as much fresh vegetables as you'd like. Although I made mine vegetarian, they also taste great with shredded meat.

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More noodle recipes to try:

Noodles with Hot Bean Sauce

Wonton Noodle Soup, Hong Kong-Style

Dan Dan Mian (Spicy Sichuan Noodles)

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Peanut Sesame Noodles

Serves 2-3 as an appetizer or side dish