Cookin'

Serious blogs are apparently not supposed to be of the "what I had for dinner last night" variety. Do I care what people think a serious blog is supposed to be about? No! I can think of few things I care less about, in fact. So here is the ultimate "what I had for dinner last night" post. (Except it was not last night, but some nights ago.) (Oh, sorry, co-bloggers!) People asked for this, and so here it is..... It is the promised report on my noodle dish experiments, inspired by my wonderful Walkabout culinary experiences in Taiwan, described in several posts earlier (see e.g. here, here, here......) A disclaimer: This is not really a recipe for beef noodles (beef "lo mien"), as I am not giving you measurements and the like. I am giving instead suggestions about things: ingredients and procedures..... I'm telling aspects of what worked best for me after a few attempts, a least so far. I'm also celebrating the "jazz" aspect I've noticed in Chinese cooking, which is the wonderful serendipitous aspect: I never use exactly the same things every time..... There are some broad themes for the framework, but some of the details can be swapped for others.... For example, I just like throwing in the butternut squash later on..... some nights I don't...I use something else. And my green leafy vegetable can vary a lot too.....I just get a variety of things on the market on the weekend, and open the fridge and see what I feel like on the night. A further disclaimer: I'm not a chef or a cook, and nor am I trying to be one! Any real chefs who know me, I apologize for this encroachment on your turf! (e.g. Mark B, if you're reading, sorry!) However, I have cooked a lot, since I was young, and I'm going to assume that you can cook just as well (or whatever) as I can. So think of this not as a cooking lesson, but as though I'm telling you about a new song or melody I learned. Not teaching you to sing. (If you don't cook...this might not be the place to learn.) Your results may vary. The day after I returned from Taiwan, I went to Chinatown. I wanted to find a good Chinese grocery store when I could get excellent ingredients and try to reproduce the flavours I'd been tasting on the walkabout. I found one after asking some people on the street. It's fantastic (although I get funny looks whenever I walk in - I'm the only non-Asian I've ever seen in there so far - people are fine with me once they see I'm just shopping like everyone else) and full of excellent things.... at great prices..... including a wonderful butcher, and stacks of fresh noodles. After a bit of reading around for what the key themes and flavours are, I then went to the store and created a new supply of important sauces and other ingredients for my cupboard and fridge, and I've been experimenting with cooking in this style for a while now.... So take a nice bit of high quality flank steak and cut it into strips, against the grain. Pop the strips into a bowl, sprinkle a bit of cornstarch in, coat the pieces with it and then put in some dark soy sauce. It'll sit there for a while and the sauce will penetrate into the meat, during the preparation of the other things. Start a nice big pan of water on the stove..... you're going to cook some noodles in a few minutes....