Home Cooking Review: Noodles and Salad

One of my favourite food sites is Blue Lotus. It's a simple review of home cooked meals that I find quietly riveting. I find that there is something restive about looking at photos of what other people eat on a daily basis, in the same way that checking out someone else's trolly at the supermarket is mildly interesting.

I've been cooking a lot lately to try and use up all my dry store of goods. So if you too are a food voyeur, here is what I have been cooking and eating lately.

Spring Rain Noodles


This is bean thread vermicelli, soaked in hot water and then tossed with fried pork mince, dried shitake mushrooms (soaked in hot water for 30 mins), bean sprouts, spring onions, diced eggplant (salted and rinse to remove bitterness) and Chinese chili bean paste and ginger. Basically you add pork and fry off then all the other ingredients. Then in a side bowl mix tblspn or so of light soy, xiaosheng rice wine, chicken stock or water or mushroom juice (1/4 to 1/2 cup) with 2 teaspoons of corn flour. Add to pork to make it all saucy then add noodles and toss. Finally flavour with some sesame oil and sprinkle with corriander and beansprouts. You can make a vege version of this minus the pork and chicken stock using mushroom stock or water.



I served the noodles with this really yummy tomato salad of sliced tomato, sprinkled with corriander, sichuan pepper corns and cumin seeds and a sauce made of spring onions, rice vingear, pinch of sugar, salt, crushed garlic, and sesame oil.