Might get back to pen some notes in a bit, but if you're looking for more detail/more information, definitely check out the full written guide here: chinesecookingdemystified.substack.com/p/noodle-soup-101 (free post as always, if it had to be said) There's a plethora of information inside... discussing everything from milky fish or fried egg bases, alternative soup bases for the jiaotou-based soup noodles, how to use rice noodles, how to adjust (practically) any stir fry to work as a soup noodle, a recipe for simple Chinese stock if you need one, etc. It gets a little long (sorry), but I hope it can be a good resource that you can refer to in the future, if you need. In the meantime, we're flying out in a few hours - spending a couple weeks in China (Hong Kong, Shunde, and then doing a little 'research' in Guangxi haha). We'll be off during that time, but once we're back we've got three videos that we're really excited for. We also may or may not put out a little update video around then chit chatting about some of our long term interests/plans - for the minority of y'all that might be interesting in that :). If you're curious at all, we'll be sure to be good about updating the Instagram with some good food pictures while we're away: instagram.com/chinesecookingdemystified/

@artistlovepeace

7 ай бұрын

Wonton Mein, my favorite of all time. Momma Wong's wontons. Pork and shrimp wontons. My favorite.

@artistlovepeace

7 ай бұрын

Have you heard of purim?

@metalhead635098

7 ай бұрын

Hey, could I use Lao Gan Ma oil for Qiangguomian instead of infusing aromatics into oil like you did? Or will that be too different?

@winniekhongkp

7 ай бұрын

Chop stick etiquettes please... 5.35 minutes... All others r great. Thx.

Two tips I've found: 1) You can get quite some way with LKK chicken powder and whole garlic cloves. As in, 6-8 whole garlic cloves. How did I find this out? I went to my favourite noodle soup place (it only does noodle soup) at about 3 PM one day when there were no customers. The lady was watching Chinese soap operas and peeling bag after bag of garlic heads. Massive amounts. There were no dishes on the menu (or sambals) that used anywhere that amount of garlic. I figured it out. IT WAS GOING INTO THE SOUP. 2) Keeping little zip-lock bags of 3-4 slices of BBQ Pork in your freezer is a fine thing to do. You can go further and portion out some pre-made IQF wontons, prawns, pre-soaked mushrooms. Thaw them in water in the sink. Whipping up a char-siu wonton min after coming home drunk on a cold winter's night is godly. Also, thank you so much for your tip on "wok soup" in your "whole meal" video. I made one by accident when blanching vegetables and some pork belly for a stir-fry. I ended up with about 500mL of fatty, cloudy blanching liquid in my wok. Out of curiosity, I added chicken powder, salt, MSG, red vinegar, and tasted it. DAMN! I gave up on my stir-fry, and threw all the meat, vegetables and some rice noodles back in, and had noodle soup for dinner. It was DAMN fine!

One thing I like about this is that you guys are honest about how hard food can be to make. So many channels will have something I fail several times at and are like _"Oh this is dead simple"_. like why you gonna lie about that? People are just going to be annoyed and stop making things you suggest. Not here though I can just be told I need a day off to try making something for the first time, cool now I will not be annoyed when stuff comes out wrong the first time.

@ChineseCookingDemystified

7 ай бұрын

Ha, we're just lucky that we won y'all over at first with stuff like "Jianbing that you need to purchase specialty equipment for" or "Lamian made by mixing up your own dough conditioners (purchasing large quantities of Sodium Metabisulfite won't get you on a list, promise)" or "Flaky Fluffy Baozi that you never knew exists, but requires fermenting sourdough activated by separately-fermented rice" Everyone else need to compete in that quick-and-easy/30-minutes-or-less game ;)

@brandon3872

7 ай бұрын

​@@ChineseCookingDemystifiedTrue, while some quick, easy foods can be genuinely delicious, most of the tastiest dishes take a lot of time and effort, it's just reality.

These are some great ideas! I usually take the super easy route, if I'm being lazy. I'll start boiling some decent frozen dumplings with Better than Bullion, add in garlic and ginger, some shiaoshing, light soy, white pepper, five spice, and then throw in some bean thread or some. After simmering for a bit, I'll bowl it up, and eat the dumplings with black vinegar and ginger while slurping up the soup noods and broth.

@empatheticrambo4890

7 ай бұрын

I basically do the same thing but even lazier with a ramen packet - and I crack an egg into it while boiling the noodles. Pour it back over the dumplings, and then while eating spread that nice yolk around for flavor

@a_trauma_llama2991

7 ай бұрын

Gonna try this thanks!

@a_trauma_llama2991

7 ай бұрын

​@@empatheticrambo4890this is a staple for me too

@eddiemurphy5566

7 ай бұрын

If I'm feeling motivated and fancy-schmancy, I'll start by boiling a couple of fridge cold eggs for 6.5 mins, drop em in cold water and tap the shells, and let em rest while I prepare the soup noods. When the dumpling soup noods are done, split the jammy eggs, lay them on top, and sprinkle with kosher salt and a few drops of soy sauce.

@MyChilepepper

7 ай бұрын

Thank you guys for sharing. I’ll try all without the dumplings but some slivers of rotisserie chicken for extra protein.

MAN you guys don't miss. The focus on technique is always much appreciated -- these are the techniques that I and many others will carry forward with us through my life in cooking.

You mean to tell me I've been using a Chinese method to make soup noodles in order to spice up my instant ramen for years and I didn't know it until now? Sweet. I usually make vegetable stir fries and then add water, sauces, and spices, boil the noodles, remove the noodles, and then poach a couple eggs. For the toppings, I usually just thrown on peanuts, cashews, scallion greens, and/or sesame seeds. It's just so natural!

I learned from the Korean Jigae soups to not overthink asian soups, a good soup base will get you a long way (basically approach 1 from the video, only in lazy). Thanks for giving me some strats for Chinese soups.

Thank you for making sure we still get our cute dog content

I live in a city with tons of Chinese food options and still to this day one of my faves is this no-nonsense, sort of hole-in-the-wall Cantonese place called Hon's Wuntun House in the Financial District that had the best noodle and/or wonton soup. It's simple and no frills but complex and everything is fresh and served to order. The guy sits in front of a giant boiling cauldron with a wok and the stock pot next him just doling out great food all day long. I think they renovated it and/or got bought out so I hope it's still the same great food.

@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger

5 ай бұрын

My childhood favorite was just called "Mushi's" They served the absolute best red pork - as a kid it was my favorite place to go, I would ask every time we went by the area but we only had it maybe once per month. We moved away before I was a teen; I'm an adult now and to the best of my knowledge, Mushi's no longer exists. I've gone back to visit recently and just couldnt find it.

It is crazy that this has been uploaded. I've been scanning your channel over the course of this week for noodle soup recipes. Seeing this video pop up is a delightful serendipity!

I recently made pho at home and it tasted excellent. I had all the condiments and the time (it took an entire day) but it wasn't difficult or too expensive, probably cause I made one stock pot worth of it and not a huge vat. I also used just one top side piece of beef and one kilo worth of bones and not the amount you see in restaurants.

I spent several years in the 'far East" and loved it! You folks always take me back. Thank you!

Noodle soup is my go to comfort food and this video is so much appreciated for giving it more depth of flavor. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, I was scouring your channel and youtube for proper Chinese noodle, especially soup noodle ideas and now you upload the perfect video.

Yall are next level amazing and you have made my life so much better. Thank you for all youve done for my mouth and belly.

My understanding of Noodle soup is pretty much to extract the flavor of the protein and using that brought to extend/ expand the dish for the whole family to eat. ( instead of just boiled pork/beef/chicken now you have the same but much more because of the noodles) Us Asians (on what I experience) have very powerful spiced food to complement the Bland rice ( rice is the staple everything else is to complement the rice or noodles)

I made qiangguomian for my family tonight (mostly because it was snowing and i was craving something soupy) but I was worried that it wasn't going to be liked very much because of how different it is from what we usually eat. Fortunately I was just anxious as everyone enjoyed the meal and we finished the pot pretty quickly

Very cool to see different philosophies on how to make a soup.

This video shows a stir fry dish that was immediately converted into a soup base for the noodles. However, you can also utilize leftover stir fried dishes to build the soup, too. My dad likes to make noodles this way, so he can utilize the leftovers.

Your videos are always inspiring thank you!

Shoutout to Korean Dashida powder. Best instant bouillon, and a great base for quick noodle soups.

They make it look so easy and simple

This video is GOLD! Truly demystified! Now I don't have to rely on the regular cheapo ramen that is loaded with salt, thank you!

Exactly what I needed, thank you🙏

was waiting for a video of this sort... thank you so much!

Thanks for the primer on all these different variations! I had to make instant rice vermicelli immediately after this

Reminds me of when I cook Bola-Bola/Almondigas (Meatballs) with Patola (Luffa - Chinese Okra) and Misua noodles. Frying up some tasty stuff then making a quick stock and finishing it off with some noodles and quick-cook veggies!

I eat noodles pretty similar to this style almost every day. Definitely gonna try to source some of the xuecai for approach 2 soon!

Great video, I look forward to trying these methods.

One we do a lot at home! A typical Canto soup base (pork bones and lotus root or pork and watercress), the thick, round rice noodles, and a topping of ground pork "jiaotou" with pickled veg and/or frozen mixed veg (never heard it called that before but I guess that's rhat it is!) and a drizzle of watered down 紅腐乳

Tried your Qiangguomian and Loved It. Great recipy

Thanks again for the awesome content!

Exactly the video I needed!

Literally grew up with this dish

Awesome, soup noodles are my favourite kind of food!

I really like these homestyle cooking videos. As cool as it is to make some stuff from scratch, realistically I'm only going to do it once and call it good.

@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger

5 ай бұрын

Make it a few times per year as a treat around holidays c: That way you can always look forward to it and appreciate the effort you put into it

gotta show this to my mom, her go-to "technique" is boiling some fresh wonton noodles for a criminally long time and then adding oyster sauce to the noodle water 😭

With the noodle soup strategies in mind & the dal strategies in mind, it got me thinking of all the possibilities in both. What if the noodle soup ways were to be combined with those of dals/lentils (such as dal bhat form, grinding & toasting then to use as spices, & lentil filled wontons or wonton pakora/pakoda, to name but a few)?

thank you for making something from the jiang nan region! :D another way we make noodles in nanjing that i do a lot a home is 小煮面, mostly just all the ingredients boiled in a wok and from stalls and noodle places its some how even better than xuecai rousi mian, would love if you did a recipe for that!

Some cheat cope from experience: 1. You can marinate pork or any protein with soy source with pepper, and add salt at last stage to adjust seasoning. 2. You can use the leftover water from boiling noodle as base for the soup, add or subtract starch water for soup consistency.

I just ordered some xuecai. I've eaten it at dishes at restaurants, but never cooked with them myself. Going to have to review recipes you two have used it in.

Ahh your dog is so cute! loved the shot of him at the groomer's

My soup noodle expertise involves adding hot water to Maruchan instant noodles 😂. But I really enjoy your videos showing the amount of knowledge experienced cooks have.

🤯 This video is a great example of whatever that saying about "Most times getting to 80% with 20% of the effort required is better than getting to 100% with 100% of the effort". Which, in this case, isn't even possible for most home cooks, as you mentioned. More like "Getting to 80% with 120% of the effort required" LOL

Wow look so good

Great video, delicious food.

I will happily borrow the term "Soupify" and use it as often as I can

I saw you two yesterday walking through the market streets of Central. I wanted to come over and say Hi, but didn't want to bother you, so I just bought my sweet potatoes and went home.

Home cooks can make practical those complex, vendor soups by use of a time-controlled pressure cooker, such as an Instant Pot. I make pho and ramen broths routinely this way. Do some prep the night before; start the instant pot in the morning before leaving for work, and come home to a family-ready broth in the evening. We almost never dine out for Ramen or Pho any more.

Im going to master soup as im having bariatric surgery next year and liquid will be my food for a few weeks. I choose asian style for all the fresh ingredients.

Tks

I think that qiangguomian is actually quite interesting...? Wonder if using dried shiitake and toss in the soaking liquid would work too. Definitely gonna buy some noodles to make one after I got home from Jakarta next week, our local supermarkets here sold lots of great fresh noodles from our local noodle industries.

I do a quick soup stock with red miso and dashi. Easy as pie.

Id love to see a video on duo jiao

Thank you for these recipes, great video as always! In the recipe for QIANGGUOMIAN is it 1 or 2 cloves of garlic? In the description and on Substack it says 2 but you say 1 in the video at 3:57 Thanks again for your work!

💧looks amazing 💧

Soup is good food.

What kind of noodles would you recommend? I don’t have that much variety in our supermarket but will try!

I'm definitely a stirfry then soup type of person when cooking for myself.

good food

Your voice are really like OTR food guy! 😄

Do you have a video on how you did those eggs?

Can you make indo chinese babi pangang? It's our favourite in the Netherlands. It's just like roast pork or char siu with a sweet sauce.

Question, noodles.....I have seen a wet dough where a knife scrapes the edge of a bowl to make a noodle that goes right into the hot soup. 🤔Could that noodle work with these methods? I am really interested in trying it out.

Later version looks like ma-po tofu ramen available in Chinese restaurants in Japan.

I was literally just wishing for a new chinese noodle soup recipe to make this weekend. How are you guys reading my mind? Please don't do that again

@ChineseCookingDemystified

7 ай бұрын

Yeah we got a notification from google that you were thinking about it, figured we could squeeze in quick video before the weekend If you don't want that service you can go into your google profile and untick the box "please track my thoughts and innermost desires in order to deliver relevant content and advertisements". It's ticked by default right next to the "please, definitely listen to all of my conversations and sell the data to the highest bidder" box, not sure why. Feels like it'd be better to be opt-in

@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger

7 ай бұрын

@@ChineseCookingDemystified Opt-in?! Don't you care that Google CEOs only make $4.98E9 annually? They _NEED_ that data or they'll starve! For someone who makes such high-quality, heart-warming, delicious food-based content: you could learn a thing about "sharing" from Google.

@angelad.8944

7 ай бұрын

Oh my gosh, 😂 this made me laugh for awhile. I had to come back and leave a comment and of course took the opportunity to watch the video again. @@ChineseCookingDemystified

holy fuck this is everything I need in life hitting the store in a couple days and deffffffff re'ing up on some must have ingredients that I either used up or dumped before my recent move quick(ish) noodle soups are my fucking LIFEBLOOD, especially now that it's getting to fall weather (in Florida, re: it's low 80's, not low 90's)

I would like to add that the chicken bowl is important to the taste, especially in jiatou methods

I wish I could find good dried soup noodles, there are so many at my Chinese grocery store, it’s overwhelmingly

One question about the recipes. It seems like they are for single servings, correct? Do you think it would be unwise to double these recipes?

How do you make your noodles?

👍❤

I noticed you used what looked like a stainless steel wok in the first recipe. If so, was that an intentional choice to not use carbon steel based on the ingredients or am i reading to much into it?

@ChineseCookingDemystified

7 ай бұрын

Yeah stainless steel woks are good for soups/braises/steaming. But any material is fine

Is the fried egg yolk always hard cooked?

- Is that a shiny stainless steel wok? Also, what is the diameter? Make a stir fry, cook rice on top - What is the diameter of the wok? In some videos where both wok are used, the "silver" wok's diameter looks larger

as a chinese, the easiest route for soup is lard, soysauce, and scallion, toss some boil noodles in with those and call it a day

I know it's quite random and complicated, but can you try to make peking duck

Hey guys, a video idea for you: confinement/postpartum warming foods

When Steph mentioned using fresh noodles, she explicitly said to use non-alkaline. Is there any reason for that? Your related substack post includes a long list of noodle choices, which suggests that it's not just because you're trying to stay true to the style.

@ChineseCookingDemystified

7 ай бұрын

Oh, simply because those would be the traditional choices for those specific dishes. You could obviously use alkaline noodles in either and they would taste good. Apologies, I know that came out a little ambiguous.

MSG is the key.

Theres no way you dont have a spot on ben shapiro impression

I was not aware of noodle being a verb these days 😛

@langustajableczna

7 ай бұрын

Are you also not aware that people can be flexible or playful with language and create neologisms?

@isabellamorris7902

7 ай бұрын

Noodle's been a verb in music for decades at least!

@ChineseCookingDemystified

7 ай бұрын

Actually Noodle is the adverb there, it’s soup that’s the verb.

I dont see why people kept saying pho is difficult to make?

are you on billi billi?

LOL @ dog at the groomers. 😂 👍👍👍 💕 I guess I'm a weird one, but I hate the taste and texture of fresh noodles or fresh pasta. Bleh

I just realised this guy sounds like a chill Ben Shapiro

Easily isn't a verb. How to.... ruin? noodle soup?

Noodle soup is probably the most offensive phrase for Ramen noodles

It's a bit sad that those are so unhealthy because they are delicious.

@billzigrang7005

7 ай бұрын

?Except for the sodium content, what's the problem??

@sebastiangluck7793

7 ай бұрын

The main ingredients are salts. Since it geht's cooked in boiling water, most of the more complex nutrients are destroyed. The little meat, greens, mushrooms or beans you suffer from this.

@poom323

7 ай бұрын

Maybe just parboiled or add fresh veggie instead of full cook with boiling water.

Napa = wombok. Scallions are Spring onions. Bouillon powder is either stock cubes or powder (or actual bought stock). Is your dark chinese vinegar Chinkiang. Unfortunately an americanism that floating into Australian English is flavourful. It should be Flavoursome.

Laughing as you explain how much of a pain in the ass 'famous' soups are, as I just spent the better part of an hour and a half putting together a big stockpot full of Taiwanese niu rou mian broth. Yeah that's extremely real. But definitely worth it once you figure out the recipe and learn to tweak it to your personal taste.