Stir-Fried Cilantro Chili Noodles with Egg

Cookbook Countdown is a monthly cooking/baking event, which I'm co-hosting with Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray.  Everyone is welcome to join us. How does it work? To summarize, you may select a cookbook from your own cookbook collection, to cook or bake from each month. That selected book shall be your cookbook of the month. You may cook any recipes and as many recipes as you want from your selected book of the month. This is a fabulous way of using your cookbooks at least once! For more information on Cookbook Countdown, please click here. Do join us! 

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Cookbook Countdown #1 : Recipe No. 6

from my selected cookbook for this month, Stir-Frying To The Sky's Edge by Grace Young.

I ccok noodles very often at home, and my most favourite noodles are bee hoon (rice vermicelli). So when I saw this recipe from the book, I knew that sooner or later I will be stir-frying this noodle dish. 

The recipe uses 1 cup of fresh cilantro leaves and stems, but I have used a big bunch, probably about 3 cups. Firstly, I love lots of veggies in any noodle dish, and secondly I love cilantro. I don't think too much veggie is a bad thing! Cilantro is really a herb, but in this dish, it is like a refreshing veggie in a noodle stir-fry. I like this rice vermicelli dish a lot. Really tasty, fragrant and with the shredded eggs, extra yummy. Made this for our lunch and I can say that I will be cooking this again.

Stir-Fried Cilantro Chili Noodles with Egg

(adapted from "Stir-Frying To The Sky's Edge", by Grace Young, or here)

8 ounces (1/2 package) thin rice stick noodles (vermicelli)
1/2 cup chicken broth or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons plus 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
2 large eggs, beaten
1 to 2 tablespoons minced Anaheim chilies, with seeds
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 cup chopped cilantro sprigs and stems
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 teaspoons sesame oil
Cilantro sprigs

1. Soak the noodles in a large pan or bowl with enough warm water to cover for 20 minutes or until they are soft and pliable. Drain the noodles in a colander, shaking well to remove excess water. Using kitchen shears, roughly cut the noodles into 6-8-inch long pieces. In a small bowl combine the broth, soy sauce, and rice vinegar.
2. Heat a 14-inch flat bottomed wok over high heat until a bead of water vaporizes within 1 to 2 seconds of contact. Swirl in 2 teaspoons of the peanut oil, making sure the bottom of the wok is completely coated in oil. Add the eggs and cook 30 seconds to 1 minute, tilting the pan so that the egg covers the surface as thinly as possible to make a pancake. When the bottom is just beginning to brown and the pancake is set, using a metal spatula flip the pancake and allow it to set, about 5 seconds, before transferring it to a cutting board. Allow to cool, then cut the pancake into 1/4-inch-wide shreds.
3. Swirl the remaining 2 tablespoons peanut oil into the wok. Add the chillies and ginger, then, using the spatula, stir-fry 10 seconds or until the aromatics are fragrant. Swirl the broth mixture into the wok, add the drained noodles, reduce the heat to medium, and stir-fry 2 minutes or until the noodles are just tender and almost all the liquid has been absorbed by the noodles. Add the cilantro and egg shreds, sprinkle on the sugar, slat, and pepper, and stir-fry 1 minute or until well combined. Stir in the sesame oil. Garnish with cilantro.

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Kitchen Flavours and Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray".

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Toasted Pita and Herb Salad

"January Potluck", the theme at I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC). For this week, we get to cook with any of IHCC's past and present featured chefs. I've made Ellie Krieger's simple salad using toasted pita and fresh herbs.

I love this simple salad. The salad dressing is a mixture of lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. The scallions and fresh mint are from my garden pot, along with the fresh cucumber which I've freshly harvested that morning. What I like about this salad is the combination of the fresh herbs with the lemony dressing, very refreshing. The crisp leafy greens and the crunch of the toasted pitas with my addition of hard-boiled eggs makes this a satisfying plate for a light lunch. 

Toasted Pita and Herb Salad
(adapted from "The Food You Crave", Ellie Krieger)
One 6-inch whole-wheat pita bread with pocket
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 large head romaine lettuce, leaves torn into bite-size pieces (about 5 cups lightly packed)
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 scallion (white and green parts), thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
1/2 large English cucumber, cut in half lengthwise, seeded, and thinly sliced into half-moons
1/2 pint grape tomatoes, cut in half
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered (my addition)

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Split the pita into 2 rounds and toast on a baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Allow the pita to cool and break into bite-size pieces. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Add the oil and whisk to incorporate.

Toss the lettuce, parsley, scallion, mint, cucumber and tomatoes together in a large serving bowl. Right before serving, add the pita and dressing to the salad. Toss well to coat and serve.

I'm linking this post with I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC), theme for this week

Potluck

Lemon Squares, French Style : TWD

It's Tuesdays With Dorie (TWD) week. We have two selected recipes to bake from each month and for this month, we were given the choice to select which recipe to bake first. I've made Fluted Carrot-Tangerine Cake two weeks ago, and for this week, it is Lemon Squares, French Style. I love lemon bars, one of my favourite baked lemony treats. Dorie's French style lemon squares comes in three layers. The bottom layer is a buttery shortbread dough, using the same dough, some is reserved as a streusel topping, with some chopped almonds sprinkled over. Sandwiched in between these two layers is the delicious lemony curd. 

I made the lemon curd the day before and bake the lemon squares on the next day. Made half the recipe and some changes to the amount of butter and sugar. There's quite an amount of butter for the curd itself! For half a recipe, it calls for 1 stick plus 1 tablespoon butter, which is about 130gm. I used only 60gm and it works out just fine for me. As for the sugar, I've used a scant 1/2 cup of sugar, with slightly less than 1/3 cup of lemon juice. The lemon curd cooks up pretty quick and it is lemony, silky, and very, very yummy! Love it!

Lemon curd, so silky smooth and very addictive!

The shortbread dough is easy to make. But the amount of sugar in the recipe is a little too much for me. I like salty buttery crust, instead of sweet crust. Since the lemon curd is lemony sweet, I've reduced the amount of sugar for the dough to 50gm (original amount for half a recipe is 125gm). Some of you may be wondering about the texture of the dough with the amount of sugar I've reduced, but it works for me, and I have always reduced the sugar for Dorie's sweet pastry dough recipe each time I make it. And the dough has always turns out buttery, tender and flaky without being overly sweet.

For half a recipe, I've baked the lemon squares in a 7" square baking pan.

Some chopped almonds is sprinkled over the streusel topping and bake until the edges are caramelized and the curd is puffy, about 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in pan over a rack. Dorie says to allow at least 2 hours and up to 6 hours before cutting. I've left mine to cool overnight and cut it the next morning.

These bars are really yummy with the perfect amount of sweetness. The dough is buttery, salty, flaky just as I like. The struesel topping with the bits of almonds is a different take on the usual lemon bars that I've made before. Much as I like these bars with the streusel topping, my personal preference is still the old-fashioned way with just the shortbread base and the lemon curd without any topping, with just a sprinkling of powdered sugar over the squares. But that being said, these bars are really yummy, I would say no if served a piece of these!

A yummy lemony treat, good to snack on anytime.

I'm linking this post with Tuesdays With Dorie (TWD)