Old Buddy Noodles
tagged with: noodlesA classic street food noodle dish from my hometown, Nanning! It's umami, sour, spicy, funky, and infinitely satisfying. Paraphrasing a friend, "the first time I had this was a core memory."
stuff you'll need
- rice noodles
- pork (ideally the weird stuff, kidney, liver, etc. but sliced pork shoulder or ground pork can also work)
- tomatoes
- sour bamboo shoots
- garlic
- ginger
- fermented black beans
- pickled peppers
- soy sauce
- shao xing wine
- (optional) chicken stock
- (optional) wood ear, mushrooms, any other accoutrements for the soup
preparation
The hardest work for this dish is doing all of the prep. You'll need to really really finely mince the garlic, ginger, fermented black beans, and pickled peppers. This becomes the base flavor of the soup, and you don't want to have large chunks of any of it floating around.
Slice up your pork and marinate it simply with some salt, white pepper, soy sauce, shao xing wine, or whatever you want. Or don't marinate it. But it'll probably be a little better if you marinate it. But also it's your life.
Also dice up your tomatoes, to a somewhat small size. Chunking them is fine too. Depends if you want bites of tomato in the soup or for the tomatoes to sort of melt into the soup. If you like both, you can dice and chunk tomatoes.
After finely mincing all of those ingredients, heat up some oil in a wok, and stir fry the mince. Be careful not to let the garlic burn, you just want to let the hot oil activate all the amazing aromas. It should be under a minute. Add in your pork to the stir fry. Don't cook the pork all the way, but try to just get a sear on the pork so that it will lock in the juices. You'll cook the pork the rest of the way when the soup is simmering. Feel free to also season this stir fry with a bit of soy sauce. This base provides the rich, funky, umami flavors in the final dish.
Add in the tomatoes to the stir fry and let it release its juice. Once the tomatoes have reduced a bit and released their juices, add in the sour bamboo shoots, along with some of the pickling liquid. This primarily imparts some sour flavor to balance out the richness and the funk of the stir fry. If you don't like too much sour, don't add that much.
Once all the flavors and ingredients have gotten a chance to mingle and cross pollinate their flavors, simply add chicken stock (or water), and the rest of your soup accoutrements. Allow the soup to simmer so that the pork fully cooks and so that the flavors fully mix together.
Separately boil some water and cook the rice noodles. Serve the soup together with your rice noodles!
notes
I know this dish as a street food, and as with street foods, every stall has a different take. Maybe try stir frying the tomatoes first. Or stir fry the pork first. Or stir fry the sour bamboo shoots first. Use your feelings to figure out what works for you.