It has taken me so long to write about the time we spent in Hong Kong last winter. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps because we were there for long enough to feel like it wasn’t a trip, so there’s no clear narrative, but not long enough to make it feel routine. I’m not sure how best to structure our stories and experiences to share with you, but at the end, it’s probably best to just start writing.

We had a wonderful time in Hong Kong, and I’d go back in a heartbeat. Hong Kong is this vibrant, slightly chaotic, proud, country full of contrasts. It is at times loud and bustling and wonderfully modern and at times ancient and mystical and steeped in tradition. Pristine luxury shopping malls smelling of expensive perfume bump up against Buddhist temples filled with incense smoke. Michelin stars are awarded to French tasting menus and hole-in-the-wall dim sum joints. You can spend $30 on a cocktail or $2 for a bowl of noodles, and both will be delicious. The iconic skyscrapers packed together in Central fade suddenly and without warning into green mountains, blanketed with hiking trails.

A friend who visited several months after we’d left told me afterwards “I wasn’t expecting it to be so Chinese.” And he’s right. The international image of Hong Kong is of a massive, modern, high-tech city, full of expats and expensive clothes and big business. And it is that, in parts, but it’s also old, and pungent, and a little run-down, and very traditional. The international glitz is fun, but for us, the real draw was outside of the glamorous neighborhoods: the hole-in-the-wall dumpling restaurants and the sleepy seaside island towns. In five weeks we barely scratched the surface – for a small country there’s a lot to explore.

Hong Kong is a food-lover’s dream travel destination. Everything is good, and you can find pretty much anything, for a price. There’s an amazing hipster coffee scene (if you’re willing to spend $7 on a latte), 61 Michelin-starred restaurants (more than London and Chicago and Madrid), wet markets where you can buy any meat or seafood you can think of, and incredible local Cantonese cuisine. I tried things I never thought I would – abalone and shark fin and literal birds’ nests – and had some of the most memorable meals of my life.

When we got back from Asia I wrote down all the recipes I wanted to eventually share here – noodles and dumplings and soups. The other night I was reading through that list and when I got to “Shanghai Noodles with Pork, Mushrooms, and Cabbage” I had the most visceral food memory. Those noodles – fat as a pencil and utterly slurpable and chewy and coated in an addictive, salty-sweet brown sauce – were unbelievable. I struggled to recreate them at home – that sauce! Those fat noodles! – but after several rounds of trial-and-error I finally have a reasonable approximation.

The first recipe I tried wasn’t saucy enough and the second was far too salty. I ended up ditching the pork because it wasn’t adding anything, and experimenting with my own sauce. Ideally I would use thick fresh egg noodles but I couldn’t find any, so I made do with fresh udon. Now that I know how to make them, these are actually very easy. Once you have the sauce ingredients, you could whip them up on a weeknight with no problem.

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Shanghai Noodles with Mushrooms and Cabbage

Thick, eggy Shanghai Noodles covered in a slurpable, sweet-salty sauce and stir-fried with mushrooms and cabbage. Inspired by an extended trip to Hong Kong.

Adapted loosely from The Daring Gourmet, with sauce inspiration from BBC Good Food. 

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 4-6

Ingredients

• 4 TBS dark soy sauce (don’t substitute regular soy sauce!)
• 2 TBS peanut butter
• 2 TBS honey
• 1 TBS sugar
• 2 TBS rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp hot sauce
• 2 TBS plus 2 tsp sesame oil, divided
• 1 TBS fish sauce
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1 TBS canola oil
• 2 portobello mushroom cups, cleaned and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
• 1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps cut into thin slices
• sea salt
• 5 cups shredded napa cabbage
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 3/4 lb. thick fresh egg noodles or fresh udon noodles
• 2 fresh scallions, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, combine dark soy sauce, peanut butter, honey, sugar, rice wine vinegar, hot sauce, 2 teaspoons of the sesame oil and the fish sauce. Whisk until very smooth.
2. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the chicken stock and the cornstarch until smooth. Set aside.
3. Heat half of the remaining sesame oil and half of the canola oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Add the sliced mushrooms and sprinkle with sea salt. Cook until golden brown on both sides and tender, about 5-6 minutes, stirring often. Transfer the cooked mushrooms to a plate. Add the remaining sesame oil and canola oil to the walk along with the shredded cabbage and the minced garlic. Cook quickly, just until wilted, stirring frequently.
4. Add the sauce and the noodles to the pan with the cabbage. Use tongs to coat the noodles in the sauce, then add the chicken stock with the cornstarch. Continuously toss the noodles in the sauce until the sauce is glossy and thickly coats the noodles. Add the mushrooms back to the pan and toss a few more times, then remove from the heat. Serve immediately, topped with chopped scallions.

The post Hong Kong // Shanghai Noodles with Mushrooms and Cabbage appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

I’m back home! Only for 10 days, but I’m going to pretend it’s longer, so that I don’t start freaking out about leaving again prematurely. I got back yesterday around noon, and even though I’d been awake for almost 18 hours, I was determined to enjoy the beautiful summer Saturday, so Trevor and I went on a park picnic date, and ate crackers and cheese and did some serious people-watching. The group yoga people hanging out there were especially entertaining – think three people balancing one on top of the other in weird, acrobatic poses, but with yoga hands (and decidedly yoga-centric mentalities, from what we could overhear). Out of curiosity, we tried it out for ourselves this morning on the lawn – we weren’t very successful, but it was highly amusing.

When we came back from the park, I was pretty much a zombie, but I managed to stay awake long enough to eat a big plate of the dry-rub pork ribs Trevor made for dinner. (How could I not have? The whole house smelled amazing.) The meat was pulling off the bone so easily that I immediately knew I would have to make sandwiches with the leftovers. So today, after our weekly trip to the garden, I chopped up some cabbage to make coleslaw and sliced some of our homemade pickles while Trevor toasted hamburger buns and reheated the pork in the pan, just long enough to crisp up the edges. Sandwiches were assembled and promptly devoured. Since this was a two-for-one meal (with the ribs for dinner the night before) and all the components were easy, I knew I had to share it here – it makes a pretty killer lunch. Plus, I’m very into pickles right now, (which is good, since we have about 10 mammoth cucumbers in the fridge with the threat of more being ready next week), so anything I can put them on is an instant favorite. So here’s to summer weekends, boyfriends with culinary skills, and delicious sandwiches.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Serves 4.

• 2/3 recipe of oven-roasted dry-rub ribs, recipe below
• 1 c. purple coleslaw, recipe below
• 2 chopped spicy dill quick pickles
• 4 hamburger buns, toasted

1. Remove the rib meat from the bones with a fork and shred into bite-sized pieces. Reheat over medium-low heat in a frying pan, until warm and the edges are beginning to crisp. Remove from heat.
2. Divide the pork evenly between the four bottom hamburger buns. Top each serving with 1/4 cup of coleslaw and a few chopped pickles. Place the top bun on the sandwich and serve immediately.

Oven-Roasted Dry-Rub Ribs

Adapted from this Instructables Recipe. Serves 6, or 2 with enough for 4 leftover sandwiches.

• 1 full rack of country-style pork ribs
• 1 TBS + 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 TBS ground cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp mustard
• 6 whole cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 jalapenos, sliced lengthwise into quarters and seeds removed

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Prep the ribs by patting them dry and removing the silverskin membrane from the ribs.
2. Mix all of the dry rub ingredients (chili powder through mustard) together in a small bowl until evenly mixed. Rub half of this mixture on each side of the ribs. Then place the rack bone-side down on a baking sheet.  Add the garlic cloves and the jalapenos to the baking sheet, and roast for one hour. After the first hour, remove the ribs and filp over, and drain the fat from the pan. Then roast them for two more hours, flipping every thirty minutes. After the full three hours of cooking time, remove the ribs from the oven and let rest 10 minutes before serving.

Purple Coleslaw

Makes 3-4 cups coleslaw.

• 1/3 c. mayonnaise
• 1 TBS sugar
• 2 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp celery seed
• 1 small head of purple cabbage, shredded or thinly sliced
• 1 Anaheim pepper, seeds removed, finely diced
• 1/2 medium onion, finely diced

1. In a large bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar, salt, and celery seed until smooth. Add the shredded cabbage, diced pepper, and diced onion, and toss to coat thoroughly with the dressing. Let sit, covered and in the fridge, for at least one hour before serving.

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I know it’s the day before Thanksgiving and everyone else is probably writing about Thanksgiving food… but I’m not.  I am actually making things to bring to Thanksgiving this year – specifically this roasted beet and carrot salad with goat cheese dressing, and this pear and celery salad, but they aren’t actually in existence yet and so I can’t take any pretty pictures or tell you how they were.  What I can do, however, is tell you about November’s Cookbook of the Month – Peter Berley’s Modern Vegetarian Kitchen.

Compared to most cookbooks that I tend to grab off the bookstore shelves – generally the flashy, hot-off-the-press ones that I’ve seen popping up all over the internet – this cookbook is ancient.  Published in 2000 by Peter Berley and Melissa Clark, it’s not toted as a culinary classic, but since it has flawless reviews on Amazon, I decided to take a look.  Sometimes I find that cookbooks written more than 10 years ago are already out of date – food trends seem to vary as quickly as other trends – hey, remember pogs? furby? how about silly bandz? – and recipes that were hip and new in 2000 have either gone out of style or become culinary staples.  In some instances, this book fell into the no-longer-that-interesting category for me – the vegetable chapter, for example, was sorely uninspiring, with only one recipe (for caramelized fennel) catching my eye amidst the pages of recipes for roasted root vegetables, sauteed garlicky greens, and steamed new potatoes.  However, other chapters were jam packed with great ideas, like the pasta chapter – recipes for chickpea flour pasta with zesty leek and tomato sauce, white bean ravioli in herbed vegetable and saffron broth, whole wheat pasta with creamy walnut-portobello sauce, and chestnut pasta with porcinis, pumpkin and leeks all surprised me with their originality.  This book also has strong Asian influences throughout, with a lot of sesame and seaweed used, but that influence is not overwhelming and is balanced by French, Indian, and German touches.  One of the books strongest points is its commitment to truly cooking from scratch – it includes recipes for several creative vegetable stocks, homemade curry powders, sourdough starters, and 5 or 6 kinds of homemade pasta, using wholesome and readily available ingredients.  It is also packed with recipes, and would be a great starter book for someone just starting down the vegetarian path and looking for both staples and a few more creative recipes.  I should also note that, as someone who eats meat with relish and just happens to cook mostly vegetarian because I find it more interesting and economical, that I whole-heartedly avoid any recipe that calls for tofu, seitan, or tempeh, so I’m not rating the book on that front, although it includes plenty of recipes for using those particular ingredients.  All-in-all, it’s a solid, if slightly outdated, vegetarian tome that I’m likely to cook from again – I’ll give it 4 out of 5 stars.

I’ve already shared two recipes adapted from this book – these sesame-cranberry-maple cookies (incredible!) and these white bean ravioli.  The recipe I’m sharing today is one for pizzoccheri, a traditional Swiss dish.  Unfortunately, I somehow managed to only copy down the ingredient list before preparing this, and totally neglected to write down the actual instructions.  I realized this just after I had prepped my vegetables and heated up my pot.  Not having the book around for reference, all I had to work with was a story from the header of the recipe about a Swiss host mother making this dish nightly by making a big vegetable soup, with red wine, then boiling buckwheat noodles in the soup, and finishing it with cheese.  It sounded straightforward enough, so I just went for it, and it turned out great!  I now have a copy of the book in front of me again, and it turns out that the brief description was all I needed – I came up with almost exactly the same recipe that was printed.  That being said, this does not seem to be the traditional recipe for pizzoccheri.  A quick google search will reveal that it’s generally a dish with similar ingredients, but layered and baked with buckwheat noodles like a lasagna, rather than served as a sauce.  I’ve never tried the traditional version, but I loved this one.  I actually preferred the dish without the buckwheat noodles, although I did make them by hand, and think that the sauce can stand alone as a meal – like a thick, hearty stew.  I’m printing the recipe the way I made and enjoyed it (i.e. without the pasta) rather than how it is originally written, since that’s the way I ate it.  If you want a more authentic glimpse into the recipes in this book, check out the cookie or ravioli recipes listed above, or grab a copy for yourself.  It’s only $15 on Amazon, and in my opinion well worth the amount of material it contains.

Pizzoccheri

Quite loosely adapted from Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, by Peter Berley.  Serves 4.

• 2 TBS salted butter
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• sea salt
• 2 c. chopped green cabbage (1 small head)
• 1 russet potato, washed and cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
• 6 garlic cloves, sliced
• 6 sage leaves, minced
• pinch red pepper flakes
• 1 c. red wine
• 1 c. water
• 1/2 c. grated smoked gruyere
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook until onions are very tender.  Add cabbage, potato, carrot, garlic, sage, and red pepper flakes and cook for 3-4 minutes.  Add red wine and water and turn heat down so that stew is simmering gently.  Cook, uncovered, for about an hour, adding more water as necessary to keep vegetables just covered, until all vegetables are tender and sauce has reduced and thickened to an applesauce-like consistency.  Turn off heat and stir in grated cheese, then season with salt and pepper.  Serve hot, either alone, with a thick slice of fresh bread, or on pasta.

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