HOT AND SOUR RICE NOODLES

Hot and Sour Rice Noodles image

The Hot and Sour Rice Noodles are very popular in Sichuan and Guizhou province of China. It is very spicy and hot. In China, it is not a main dish. It's more like snacks. There are many street selling and night markets sell this kind of snacks in China. It is said that in the times of the Three Kingdoms, when the three sworn brothers were taking oath, they chose the sweet potato vermicelli as their main dish. They were hoping their brotherhood could be as long as the vermicelli. They made it spicy and sour, because they would like to say no matter life is sweet or bitter, they had no fear of the coming future. Since then, what they ate developed to the Hot and Sour Rice Noodles.

Provided by CarlChen

Categories Szechuan

Time 1h30m

Yield 2 serving(s)

Number Of Ingredients 17

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Ingredients

130 g sweet potato vermicelli
2 pak choi
1 chicken leg
4 cups water
5 cups hot water
3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon thick broad bean sauce
1 teaspoon chinese red pepper powder
2 teaspoons five-spice powder
6 teaspoons sunflower oil
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
10 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons white sesame seeds
10 peanuts
6 coriander
4 garlic

Steps:

Soak the vermicelli in hot water for 30 minutes. It must be fully soaked.
Boil the chicken leg for 15 to 30 minutes. We are not going to use the leg. We are going to need the soup. You can use the leg for other dishes. In my recipes, there is one dish which particularly needs boiled chicken leg. It is called Spicy and Sour Shredded Chicken. It is a cold dish. If you don't want to use the chicken leg, you can use hot water as the soup.
During the time when the vermicelli is soaking, we could prepare the others. Hand shred the pak choi into pieces. Peel the garlic skin off and chop it into minces. Rind the peanuts( I used peanuts, but feel free to directly use peanut kernel. make sure that you keep the red skin). Cut the coriander into 2 cm long.
Use a pan to warm the sesame seeds. Make sure that you use the smallest fire, but cook it for 5 to 10 minutes.
You could use the same pan to fry the peanut kernels. Firstly, put 2 teaspoons of sunflower oil and warm it. Put the peanut kernel in, and cook it again for 5 to 10 minutes. Again, use medium or small fire.
Now, all the preparations are done. If you like soft vermicelli, you can boil it for 5 minutes. If you like hard ones, then just skip it. However, you need to boil the pak choi for 1-2 minutes. After that, pour all water away, put the vermicelli in a bowl and put the boiled pak choi on it.
Put 4 teaspoons of sunflower oil into a wok. Warm it, and then put in cayenne pepper and thick broad bean sauce( If you really like spicy like I do, 1 teaspoon of thick broad bean sauce wouldn't be enough, you can put more. I put 5). Make sure that you use the smallest fire.
Wait till the cayenne pepper and thick broad bean sauce are dissolved in the oil, and you can see the oil turned to red. Put in the chicken soup which is made before( hot water would also be fine).
Change the fire into the biggest, and wait till the soup is boiled. Put in the Chinese red pepper powder, five spice powder, light soy sauce, rice vinegar( other vinegar is also fine, just make sure it is dark one, not the white one), and salt. Cook for 30-60 seconds more, and turn off the fire.
Pour the soup into the bowl with vermicelli till the soup overflow the vermicelli. Last, put in the warmed sesame seeds, the fried peanuts, the chopped garlic, and the coriander. Actually, these four are not necessary. You can choose according to your tastes.
Enjoy your Hot and Sour Rice Noodles. If it is not hot enough, you can put more cayenne pepper. If it is not Sour enough, you can put more vinegar. It is OK to add more of these two things afterwards.