Noodles are fast food at its best: easy and delicious.
Dandan noodles are addictively delicious. RONI LETHI.
You can’t help but like Chinese dandan noodles. After all, they’re addictively good and you’ll easily crave them, and they don’t take much time to prepare either. What could be a more irresistible combination?
The noodles are also part of Iltalehti’s Arjen luxus food series, which has been around for over ten years. Chef Risto Mikkola you can explain what it is about.
In 2016, the Readme publishing house published a cookbook of the recipes that were on the pages of Iltalehten. Since the recipes were of interest to the readers of Iltalehti, it was assumed that they would also be of interest to the buyers of the cookbooks.
– The publisher sent the book to a cookbook competition, and our book made it to the final competition of its own series, which was the hardest level of the entire competition. It had the most participants from around the world, Mikkola recalls.
Getting to the finals was such a great thing for the team that they decided to go to Yantai, China for the prize distribution. That’s where the victory came from.
In China they also ate dandan noodles.
According to Mikkola, you should make a larger batch of the sauce for dandan noodles at once. It keeps for a long time and can be used to flavor other dishes. This time, only vegetables are mixed with the noodles, but traditionally there has been ground pork among them.
Beef, chicken pieces or tofu also go well with the noodles.
– Any protein works with this, Mikkola states.
The selection of noodles is wide, so there are also many ways to prepare them. Mikkola recommends us to read the cooking instructions on the side of the package.
In this recipe, you should prefer slightly thicker noodles.
Cooked bok choy
2 bok choy
salt
1. Cut the small pok choy lengthwise into two parts and the larger ones into four parts. Put a liter of water in the pot, bring the bok choy to a boil and cook for a minute.
2. Remove from the pot and season with salt, put in a serving.
Pickled carrot
1 carrot
1/3 dl of vinegar
2/3 dl of sugar
1 dl of water
salt
1. Put vinegar, sugar and water in a pot, bring to a boil.
2. Cut the carrots into 1 mm thick strips. Pour the vinegar broth over the carrot strips, season with salt and marinate overnight. Put in a dose.
Fried mushrooms
100 g porcini mushrooms
oil
salt
pepper
1. Cut the porcini mushrooms into thin slices and lightly fry in oil, season with salt and pepper. Put in a dose.
Chili sauce
12 cloves of garlic, chopped
8 tablespoons of chili flakes
4 tablespoons of sesame seeds
8 tablespoons Sichuan pepper, chopped
3 dl rapeseed oil
1 dl soy sauce
8 tablespoons of cane sugar
8 tablespoons of peanut butter
8 tablespoons of dark vinegar
1. Mix all the ingredients together, pour into the pan and cook on low heat for 5 minutes.
2. Cool, put in a jar and store in the fridge.
Make the noodle bowls
800 g of cooked noodles
8 tablespoons of chili sauce
1 dl of boiling water for the noodles
4 tbsp pickled
carrots
4 tablespoons of fried porcini mushrooms
4 cooked bok choy
2 tablespoons salted peanuts, crushed
2 tablespoons spring onion, chopped
1. Heat the noodles’ boiling water and chili sauce in a pan, add the noodles and heat them.
2. Divide the seasoned noodles into four bowls, add carrots, mushrooms, pok choy to each bowl. Garnish the serving with salted walnut grits and spring onions.