Wanton Noodles

I had been neglecting this blog eversince I moved to Beijing.

A bit of time spent getting used to a foreign land, a bit on finding a house with a decent kitchen, another bit on finding familiar ingredients... adds up to three months in total. Wow, that was a looooong time!

But, I'm still not used to cooking Northern Chinese cuisine. This wanton noodle is a good example. Ingredients all from NTUC and hand-carried here (ya lah, I know yall think I'm crazy, but it feels really great to be able to enjoy these comfort food here ok?).

Wanton Noodles (云吞面, 云=cloud  吞=swallow）
(serves 2) This is the Malaysian style of wanton noodles with dark soya sauce. I prefer this to the tomato ketchup or chilli sauce (Fei Fei's) version as I don't like my noodles to have a sweetish-sourish taste to them.

Ingredients (wanton):
100g Minced meat (with some fats)
10pcs Prawns (shelled, de-veined and smash-chopped)
0.5no Egg white
1tbsp Cornstarch
2tsp Soya sauce
0.5tsp Salt
Dash of Pepper
1pkt Wanton skin

Method:
* Mix all ingredients (except wanton skin, of course) thoroughly and marinade for at least 2 hours.
* Take half a teaspoon of the marinaded meat and put it onto one corner of the wanton skin.
* Crumple the wanton skin such that all the meat is covered. Crumple just enough such that the meat doesn't fall out when you boil the wanton. Do not over-crumple the wanton skin cos you still want to enjoy the soft slurpy skin portion. And, remember, it's fun to be imperfect, the wanton would taste nicer if it's imperfect ;)
* Boil 400ml of water in a pot, drop shaped wantons and remove once they float on top of the water. 


Ingredients (noodles & vegetables):
200-400g Chye sim (or any other chinese greens)
100-150g Wanton noodles 

Method:
* Blanch chye sim and set aside.
* Heat up 2 pots of of clean water.
* When water rapidly boils in pot, add wanton noodles and stir with chopsticks to prevent noodles from sticking.
* As soon as the noodles are done, remove them as fast as you can and submerge them in cold (tap) water. I usually do this over a running tap. This helps to make them chewy and springy.
* Drain noodles and put them into the other pot of hot clean water. Just make sure to barely heat them up and not to cook them again.
* Assemble the noodles, vegetables, wantons and sauce (recipe below) onto a plate.
* Mix noodles thoroughly with sauce and you may eat them with soup (I didn't take a photo of the soup). 


Ingredients (sauce):
1tbsp Dark soya sauce
1tbsp Light soya sauce
1tbsp Oyster sauce
2tsps Shallot oil (or 1 tsp sesame oil)
2tsps Chilli paste (optional or ask you like) 

Ingredients (soup - optional):
600ml Water
2tbsps Large (>5cm) anchovies (soaked)
2pcs Pork ribs
1stalk Spring onion (chopped) 

Method:
* Cook anchovies and pork ribs in water for 30 minutes to an hour.
* Remove anchovies and pork ribs before serving.
* Add cooked wantons and sprinkle chopped spring onions as a garnish. 

The real thing, my weekly weeknd breakfast in SG. One is with char siew and fried wanton, and the other has all the wantons in soup. Guess which is mine? ^ ^