A short story about navigating alien fridges and the fun to be found when a light lunch requires creative substitutions.
Kitchens are very personal spaces. For anyone that cooks regularly, there is no place quite like home – a place where you know not just what ingredients and spices you have, but also (crucially) where they all are. If you suddenly realise you haven’t added something necessary for a dish, you can reach for it almost automatically: opening the drawer or cupboard by muscle memory, barely needing to engage your brain.
In other people’s kitchens, it’s a whole other story. Planning out what to make or in the middle of cooking your hand moves automatically to open the spice drawer, only to pull out a bread knife or small plate. You then discover that not only is the ingredient you’re looking for not where you would expect, it’s not actually present in the kitchen at all. Then it’s time to improvise.
I often find this when I’m making a meal at my parents’ house (where the locations of key implements and ingredients often change between visits) or acting as sous chef for friends. I had one such experience recently when making lunch at a friend’s house while they were busy working. It was an unseasonably nice day and we wanted to have a light lunch outside to enjoy the last of the year’s sunshine. Having just harvested some pak choi from their allotment (oh, to not live in London…) I decided to make some noodles to eat with the freshly picked greens. So I opened the cupboards to see what could be done…
Variations on a theme
I’ve been enjoying cooking more Chinese food this year, particularly making Sichuanese dishes. Looking in my friend’s fridge I saw they had some pork mince that needed using up, along with a couple of pickled gherkins. Having recently made dan dan noodles, I decided to use that recipe as a rough blueprint in my mind and make something similar (although lacking a few key ingredients).
Raiding the cupboards I found most of what I needed and fired up the hob. I first fried spring onion whites with garlic and ginger in vegetable oil, then stirred in some sichuan peppercorns and heated them until they smelled fragrant. At this point I added the pork mince, browning it all over and absorbing the flavour from the garlic, ginger and sichuan peppercorns – before adding some pickled gherkins for some acidity and seasoning with salt, sesame oil and soy sauce. As a final touch to add a little heat I added some chilli oil from a jar of Lao Gan Ma (the greatest condiment on planet earth) and a handful of spring onion greens to give some extra crunch.
The result was a very tasty bowl of noodles – not having access to any sesame paste meant I was missing the rich nutty flavour you get when making proper dan dan noodles, but the lack of this also helped make the salty spiciness of the pork come through more clearly. I was also pleased with the tangy sourness from the gherkins, as I wasn’t fully confident how well these would substitute for the ya cai (pickled mustard greens) more commonly used when preparing dan dan noodles.
Overall it was liberating to leave the recipe book behind and I also enjoyed the somewhat ‘ready, steady cook’ vibe of simply using up what was available to make a quick and delicious lunch. There might be no place like one’s own kitchen, but necessity is the mother of invention and it’s helpful to step outside every now and again.
Recipe: pork noodles (improvised)
Ingredients
- 400g pork mince
- 400g soba noodles
- 2 medium-sized pickled gherkins
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp sesame oil
- 4 spring onions (separate whites and greens)
- 3 garlic cloves
- 4cm piece of ginger
- 1 tsp sichuan peppercorns
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp Lao Gan Ma oil (or other chilli oil)
- Salt
Equipment
- Wok (or large frying pan)
- Saucepan
1. Prep your ingredients
Once you have prepared your ingredients, it will only take about 10 minutes to make the entire dish – meaning you can make the topping while your noodles are boiling. The amounts given in this recipe will serve four people.
Before putting your noodles on to boil, thinly slice three cloves or garlic, peel and finely chop the ginger, cut your spring onions into 1cm rounds (put the greens in a separate bowl from the whites), and finely chop your two gherkins. Now you’re ready to go.
2. Put your noodles on to boil
Put your soba noodles in a pan with boiling water and leave to cook. Double check the timing on your noodles, but they usually take around 7-8 minutes to cook, which should work perfectly with preparing the topping.
3. Fry garlic, ginger, spring onion whites and sichuan peppercorns together
Add two tablespoons of vegetable oil to a pan, heat for 30 seconds on medium heat and add the garlic, ginger and spring onion whites. Cook for about a minute and then add one teaspoon of sichuan peppercorns. Cook for another minute (be careful not to burn the peppercorns).
4. Add the minced pork and brown the meat
Add the minced pork to the pan along with a pinch of salt, turn up to a high heat and fry the pork along with the garlic, ginger, onion whites and sichuan peppercorns. Cook until all the meat is browned – it should take 2-3 minutes.
5. Add the pickles
Once the pork mince is browned, add the pickled gherkins and cook for another 30 seconds or so, stirring the gherkins into the pork and spices.
6. Add soy sauce, sesame oil and chilli oil
Turn the heat back down to medium and add the soy sauce, sesame oil and the oil from your Lao Gan Ma (or other chilli oil if you don’t have this). Stir this through the meat and keep frying.
7. Strain the noodles
Your noodles should now be cooked; strain them and portion them out equally into four bowls.
8. Add the spring onion greens and serve
Turn the heat back up to high and add the chopped spring onion greens. Stir these through the meat and cook for a final 30 seconds. Then portion out the topping onto the four bowls of noodles and enjoy!
