Dried Rice Noodles 101

Dried rice noodles, also known as rice sticks in English and pai mi fen in Mandarin, are available in nearly any Asian market, and in many American grocery stores in either the international foods sections or the health food aisle. Widely used in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia, dried rice noodles come in a […]

Noodle Shop Secret for Springy Noodles: Pre-Steaming

If you have ever eaten good wheat-based soup noodles or pan-fried noodles at a Chinese restaurant or noodle shop, one thing that you cannot help but notice is the texture of them. In soup, they are always springy, flavorful and firm, never mushy or overcooked, and when they are pan fried, they are toothsome on […]

Homemade Hunan Salted Chilies

Back when Fuchsia Dunlop’s Hunan cookbook, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook came out, I wanted to make a jar of salted chilies as per her directions so that I could use them to get an authentic Hunanese flavor in my recipes. This condiment, which is easily made at home (a good thing, because it isn’t available in […]

Cold Sesame-Peanut Noodles Beat The Summer Heat

I always tend to lose weight during the months of August and September.
That is because those tend to be the hottest months of the year here in Southeastern Ohio. Humidity is usually off the scale, and no breezes blow, while the endless sunlight pours from an azure sky in unremitting waves of heat, crashing […]

Chinese Wheat Noodles 101

Italy and China have been metaphorically duking it out over which country is the birthplace to the ubiquitous noodle.
Archaeologists can confidently say that noodles as a foodstuff originated in China; recently a noodle excavated inside an overturned pot near the Yellow River was carbon-dated to approximately 4,000 years ago.
That is an old noodle, […]