Saturday, September 22, 2012

Weekend Cooking ....Taiwanese Braised Pork Noodles

I love noodles.
Of all sorts.
With all sorts of sauces.
So when I saw a recipe for this dish, my interest was peaked!

 
Pork...a flavorful sauce...noodles!
OK, it seems this dish, which is referred to as classic, everyday dish that every Taiwanese mother has her own version of, can be served on either rice or noodles. But, as much as I like rice, yes, I went with the noodles.
You could use any sort you like. I happened to have a wide 'lo mein' dry noodle on hand, so I used that. But you could use linguine, or egg noodles or any sort of Asian noodle, udon, rice, ramen, fresh or dry. Or, yes, even rice.

 
 
For most of the recipes I saw, the sauce is fairly similar. Soy, vinegar, a little brown sugar  and the wonderful smelling five-spice powder.
Shallots or onions, garlic, ginger again, usually appear. Many recipes call for Chinese fried onions, which I admit I made no attempt to find. On the other hand, I doubled up the mushrooms when I realized I had bought both the dry and fresh. In my mind, the more mushrooms the better and it was certainly not too many in relation to the pork.
In my mind.

 
Taiwanese Braised Pork Noodles

Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth
  • 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
  • 3 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
  • 2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
  • 2 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cooking oil
  • 3 shallots, thinly sliced
  • 1 pound ground pork (or ground beef/chicken/turkey) 
  • 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 1 1-inch piece of ginger, grated
  • 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • One 8-ounce can bamboo shoots, drained and diced
  • 4 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, diced
  • or/and 4 oz. dried shiitake, soaked in boiling water, drained and sliced. Retain soaking liquid
  • 2 stalk green onion, chopped
  • 1 pound noodles or rice of your choice
Directions:

1. In a small bowl, combine the chicken broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, five spice powder and brown sugar. Set aside.
2. Heat a wok or large saute pan over medium-high heat. When hot, swirl in the cooking oil. Add in the shallots and cook about 2 minutes. Stir in the ground meat and cook until brown, breaking up large pieces. Push aside the shallots and ground beef to one side of the pan to create a small spot to fry the garlic, red pepper flakes and ginger for 1 minutes until fragrant. Add in the bamboo shoots and mushrooms. Toss everything in the pan together.
3. Pour in the broth/soy sauce mixture and pork and bring to a simmer. Lower heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Check liquid level and if it become dry add additional broth or reserved mushroom liquid. Stir in the green onions just before stirring.
4. While pork is simmering, cook the noodles or rice according to package instructions.
5. Serve the ground beef mixture over the noodles or rice, garnished with chopped cilantro if desired.

 
They say it freezes well, the perfect thing to have on hand for a quick dinner.
I don't know because over a few days, I ate it all.
The last day, I actually made a soup of it, with the noodles, the thick saucy meat, a bunch of shallots and some stock I had on hand. It was tummy warming yummy!!


This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."
Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

27 comments:

  1. I too love noodles! It seems each time I have a post for meatless Mondays, there are the noodles, front and center.
    The fact that this freezes well is a big plus to me, being the proverbial empty nester, I love making batches of delicious dinners but usually need to freeze some. This looks great.

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    1. I am making this recipe right this minute. Yum!!!!

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  3. I'm not a huge meat eater but that does look delicious!

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  4. I'm not a big fan of mushrooms, but I bet this is good.

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    1. I'm with Beth on this, but I'm sure I could substitute with peppers - great recipe!

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  6. Well, this recipe certainly piqued my interest as I have finally gotten TBG to eat mushrooms. It looks delicious although I've never used that five spice powder.
    May have to invest in some. Glad to know it freezes well.

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    1. Well, I hear it does. I read it in a few places but I didn't actually have any left to freeze...lol

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  7. This looks delicious! I recently saw a similar recipe that uses spaghetti squash for the noodles - unusual, but I'm tempted to try that, too.

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  8. This sounds so delicious and easy. I am pinning it! I made the glazed meatloaf you posted and it is our favorite now! I never seemed to make meatloaf the same twice before but that recipe is it!

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  9. I was just going to say, freeze? You mean there'd be leftovers? Fantastic dish for a warming, comforting weekday meal. Bring on the mushrooms!

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  10. I love noodles and I love mushrooms, count me in for a nice big bowl. Looks delicious, I know I'd have nothing left over to freeze!

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  11. Yum, I remember eating this back in Taiwan. Drat, now I need to find a veggie sub for this! Thanks for sharing :)

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    1. You could use the same suce..mushrooms, other veggies, cut small, maybe tofu if you are a fan.

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  12. OMG... that looks soooo good! I love Asian noodle dishes.

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  13. Looks so yummy! We don't eat pork very often in our home but maybe we'll try it with ground turkey or with tofu.

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  14. this is just the sort of thing I love to eat - I haven't got any rice wine vinegar at the moment - so once I have some it will be on the menu. Have a great week.

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  15. Yum! I love five spice powder, but haven't used it for ages. I'm big on noodles too. Must try this. Thanks!

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  16. Beautiful, and we have the ingredients on hand. Another winner here.

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  17. I rarely make Asian food, but this looks yummy.

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  18. This looks delish! We love all kinds of noodles in our house, too, especially Asian style. This reminds me a bit of Ma Pa Tofu that calls for pork and tofu. I'm bookmarking this one!

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  19. That looks yummy. I like the bright green of the chives and dark brown of the mushrooms.

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  20. this looks like a good refreshing dish.

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  21. Okay, this looks amazing. Consider yourself invited to my place any time... as long as I can stand at your shoulder and watch you make this recipe. YUM.

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  22. as always, you've inspired me. Your photos are as delicious as the food promises to be.

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