Soup Noodles

I’m really making an exception here. It’s the wonderful, authentic Chinese food I go for, and that I’ve studied earnestly for years. And yet, this recipe, which its author, Joyce Chen, points out as completely inauthentic, is so delicious, despite its dubious-sounding ingredients, that I just have to share it. These are the first spring rolls I ever made, and they’re still my wife’s favorite.

The Meat Mixture

1/2 lb hamburger

I prefer ground chuck, which used to be ubiquitous, but has now often been replaced by the supposedly-more-prestigious ground sirloin. And don’t get the super-lean stuff

1 teaspoon rice wine or dry sherry

1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon light brown sugar

1 tablespoon brown gravy syrup

I used to be able to find this easily at any supermarket, Heinz brand. When I looked this time, it had been replaced by entirely premade gravies. So instead I chopped some carrot and onion, cooked them well in oil, added 1/2 lb hamburger, broke it up and browned it very thoroughly, added water, let it cook down until there was not much liquid left, strained, reduced the liquid to a tablespoon, and crumbled in 1/2 cube of Knorr’s beef bouillion. That was probably overkill. You could probably just dissolve a whole bouillon cube in a tablespoon of water and call it a day, maybe cutting down the salt above a bit to compensate.

1/4 lb celery (about 2 large stalks)

1/4 lb onion (about half a large onion

3 1/2 teaspoons salt

I use Kosher salt

3-4 slices fresh ginger, each about the size of a quarter

2 tablespoons oil, peanut preferred

Mix the hamburger thoroughly with the rice wine, cornstarch, pepper, sugar, and brown gravy syrup/bouillion. Heat a wok or saucepan, and add the oil. When it’s hot, add the salt and ginger; when the ginger is fragrant, add the onion and celery, cooking over medium heat until the veggies are soft, about 3 minutes. Add the hamburger mixture, stirring to separate. Once the hamburger is completely cooked, turn the mixture out into a strainer over a bowl. You’ll use the liquid in the next step (which is why you didn’t want lean hamburger).

The Cabbage

1 1/2 lbs Nappa cabbage

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon MSG (really!)

Wash the cabbage and slice it into thin strips. The firm stem parts should be especially thin, about 1/8 inch. Take the liquid you drained off of the hamburger, and heat it in a wok, or a fry pan with some depth to it. Add the cabbage, little by little if your pan won’t hold it all at once. It will reduce greatly in volume. Keep stirring and cooking it until it is soft, which can take 10 minutes. Turn it out into a strainer and let cool. Thoroughly press all of the water out of it, then mix it with the flour and MSG.

Once both mixtures have cooled, combine them. Add:

1 lb bean sprouts, lightly crushed with your hands

Or don’t. This time, I forgot the bean sprouts, and my wife loved the final rolls as much as ever.

See the previous post for the process of filling and wrapping and frying. I know it’s hard to believe, reading the recipe, that these are good, but they really are. It’s not like stuffing hamburger and cabbage into a spring roll filling. For whatever reason, it’s much, much better than that.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 24th, 2006 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Chinese Recipes, Chinese Cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.