Long Life Noodles for Chinese New Year

The Long Life Noodles that were prepared for Chinese New Year were certainly a hit and disappear quickly. This dish is served hot with the BBQ Pork. The name of this dish referred to Long Noodles = Long Life. 

BBQ Pork

The BBQ Pork recipe was a recipe given to me by a classmate who's Mom use to make for Sunday Dinners. It is easily done using Salt, Pepper and Hoisin Sauce. Hoisin is available in the Asian section in a Supermarket.  

Ingredients for the dressing of this salad

• 3T dark Soya Sauce
• 2T light Soya Sauce
• 2T Oyster Sauce
• 1/2 sugar

•  1 lb noodles
• Fresh ginger, minced
• Garlic clove, minced
• 1 Onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 lb BBQ Pork, thin julienned 
• 3 cups Bean Sprouts*
• Green onions, cut into 1 inch lengths 

Cook noodles in salty water. Drain.

In a skillet, saute minced ginger and minced garlic clove in oil.
Saute thinly sliced onion until soften then add thin julienned BBQ Pork. 
Add Bean sprout*, green onions and noodles. Add dressing, stir and heat thoroughly. 
Serve hot.

*In place of Bean Sprouts, as there is a danger of food borne illness, I left them out. 
I thought that Shiitake Mushroom would have been a great addition to this dish.  I had bought Fresh Snow Pea Shots for the recipe but used then in the salad instead!

Chinese BBQ Pork using an Authentic old recipe

I needed BBQ Pork for the LongLife Noodle recipe I was making for the Chinese New Year meal.  I decide to dig out an old recipe that was given to me as I needed to drive across the city to the Chinese Market to buy BBQ pork and traffic is always busy on a Friday afternoon. 

Slices of BBQ Pork

I was able to find a pork shoulder at Superstore and to my surprise when I opened the package the skin had been included, something I would have been most annoyed but not for this recipe.  Some of the recent recipes I have looked at are using any cut of pork, some as lean as the tenderloin. But the BBQ pork you can buy at the Asian Market is very fatty!

Making this BBQ pork recipe brought back memories of being included in the Sunday Family dinners with my classmate's family.  I remember family style eating with plates of Mahoney colored chicken wings, slices of BBQ Pork and shrimp.  Sadly, I do not remember much else.  My classmate Sheila would always say to her Mom laughingly to bring the soya sauce as I loved my Chinese food in a sauce.  Which was annoying as I really had tasted few Chinese dishes at that time! 

On one of the occasions, I did see what was called a Sea Cucumber boiling in a pot of water.  It looked like a cucumber, greenish grey with what looked like spikes all over it.   I was intrigued with this and wondered what dish it was for.  Not sure about this delicacy after reading the above link. 

The BBQ Pork at my friend's home was sliced thinly and served on Noodles. The pork slices were edged in a deep red color.

My classmate had neatly written our her Mom's recipe for me.  I have never made this recipe until now!

BBQ Pork Recipe

This recipe salts the pork and lets it rest for 2 hours, something I did not do.  The recent recipes for BBQ pork do not use the red food coloring, therefore you do not get that red edging around the meat.  

The pork was salted and peppered first

Hoisin sauce was brushed on to all sides of the meat. It was repeated a few times while cooking.

This piece of meat was slowly braised at 250 degrees, covered for 5 hours.  It was uncovered and brushed with Pomegranate molasses and placed under the broiler for a few minutes.   I was thrilled with the appearance of this and the tasters passed the test.

The pork was cute into small pieces for the noodle dish.

Long Life Noodles

Garlicky Oyster sauce Gai Lan, Chinese Broccoli

The best recipes are those that you get from others.  Yesterday I picked up some Chinese Broccoli, Gai Lan and asked the Chinese lady who was stocking the fresh vegetables on the shelves how she prepared the vegetable at home.   She happily told me the steps she used to prepare this leafy green vegetable. The recipe is very much how our friend prepares it for his family in Regina.  Garlicky Oyster Sauce Chinese Broccoli is my favourite dish to order at dim sum.  So easily done at home!

After washing the Gai Lan, trim off the leaves so you have manageable pieces to eat with chop sticks. I left the pieces whole but one could cut them even smaller.  

 The vegetable is par-boiled in hot boiling water for 2-3 minutes, until the leaves wilt.  The Gai Lan is then dropped into icy cold water to keep the vibrant color. 

Oyster Sauce

3 Tablespoon water
3 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1 Teaspoon soya sauce
1Tsp Sesame seed oil
1 tsp sugar
Black pepper and red pepper chilies
garlic cloves, minced

Mix together and beep in Microwave 1 -2 minutes until sauce is hot


Pour sauce over the parboiled broccoli. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the veggies. 

My friend did stir fry the parboiled vegetable in hot oil, after he had browned the minced garlic and chile flakes in the hot oil.  Since I was braising beef chunks in the oven, I placed the serving dish with the Chinese broccoli and sauce to warm up before serving!

The recipe was a winner, and I will be making it again.  Although my 4 1/2 year old grandchild was most disappointed that when I said I was serving dim sum, it was not steamed BBQ pork buns!