Random Tidbits: Part 6 - Oodles of Noodles (and Pasta)

(Last updated: Jan. 17^th, 2010 @ 14:37)

Scroll to the bottom for links to the rest of the Random Tidbits series.

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I can’t imagine a life without noodles or pasta. The main reason is because I don't like rice. Over the past month, we've had noodles and pasta quite a few times.

Homemade Pasta with Chicken and Fish in an Herb Cream Sauce – December 14^th

Mom altered the recipe a bit, which made the pasta less firm and springy like egg noodles. The pasta wasn't hung out to firm up, unlike the last time.

And just like the previous time we made homemade pasta, we served the pasta with marinated chicken. It's a coincidence that we had marinated chicken in the fridge again.

The cream sauce was made with some dried “fine herbs” from the spice rack. We threw in some basa fish in the sauce, too. The sauce was reminiscent of the coquille St-Jacques sauce.

I polished my plate off in record timing. I wish we had made more.

Phnom Penh Noodles – December 15^th

My mom and dad had dry Phnom Penh noodles. The image above was taken during the early stages of his noodles with only rice noodles, oyster sauce, a bit soy sauce, fried garlic and fried garlic oil mixed in. To complete the bowl of noodles, protein (in the form of sliced beef, beef balls and a mix of ground pork and dried shrimp), cilantro, green onions, and a bit of soup was added. Along with his bowl of dry Phonm Penh noodles, my mom and dad had a bowl of soup on the side.

As for grandparents and myself, we had the wet Phnom Penh noodles. My bowl was very minimalistic, with only rice noodles, beef balls, sliced beef, fried garlic and fried garlic oil, a shot of fish sauce and cilantro and green onions. I took the picture just before I added the finishing touches.

The one thing my bowl of Phnom Penh noodles was missing the ground pork mixture. The ground pork for Phnom Penh noodles is made with minced garlic, dried shrimp, a bit of green onions, oyster sauce, light soy sauce and cornstarch. I don’t like the taste of dried shrimp so I just leave it out.

Mom also made some you tiao to go with the soup. Just thinking about dunking you tiao in the soup makes my mouth water. After lunch, we enjoyed strong coffee with you tiao - I think it's a Cambodian/Vietnamese thing, cause Jimmy and some of my Chinese friends grew up eating you tiao with soy milk. Maybe it's just a family thing. *shrug*

New Years Eve Lunch – December 30th, 2010

Like clockwork, Grandpa and Grandma came over for lunch on a day when mom wasn’t working. With them, they brought over 3 whole fresh lobsters for my parents to cook up. And just like clockwork, Grandpa started working the phones and invited everyone over.

Since we were low on groceries, Grandpa decided to order takeout from the New Hong Shing. Based on our many visits to the restaurant for various occasions, I knew that their noodles aren’t great. On the other hand, their soups are amazingly flavourful. Anyway, Grandpa gave the New Hong Shing a call...


Grandma wanted egg noodles, so Grandpa ordered egg noodles with seafood. It was mediocre. There wasn’t much smokiness in the sauce and the egg noodles were soggy by the time we began to eat.


(Sorry for the blurry picture.)
I suggested that he should order the rice noodles with soy sauce and beef. I’ve learned that ordering rice noodles with a wet sauce will only taste bad. The noodles absorb the sauce and become soggy. It was so-so.


Despite my warning about soggy rice noodles, Grandpa ordered rice noodles with beef and Chinese vegetable. I thought he ordered my noodles, but when I opened up the box I noticed that there were black beans in the sauce. Whatever this was, it was not great. The noodles were soggy, which I was expecting, but the sauce didn’t have much flavour. I ended up adding a bit of soy sauce to help it go down.


There was leftover Costco rotisserie chicken from the previous night. Surprisingly, the chicken was still juicy, tender and flavourful (we highly suspect that Costco brines their rotisserie chicken).


My dad made a quick soup from the carcass of the rotisserie chicken, some bones from our freezer, and homemade mustard greens. He garnished the soup with green onions, fried garlic and fried garlic oil.


The stars of the meal: 3 stir fried lobsters in a ginger and onion sauce. The lobsters were very sweet and tender. If there were more sauce, it would’ve been more enjoyable.

After lunch, I had a really bad stomach ache. I’m assuming it was because of all the grease. If I had tea with everyone else, I think it would’ve helped.

New Year Noodles – January 1^st, 2011

Mom and Dad made some stir fried rice noodles with beef for dinner. We call it cha kway teow in Teochew. They used the wider pho noodles (banh mi) as opposed to the wider rice noodles.

The noodles were soaked and then stir-fried with a bit of vegetable oil, oyster sauce and dark soy sauce.

The beef was marinated in oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, cooking wine and a bit of baking soda (used as a tenderizer).  As for the Chinese vegetables, they were parboiled and stir-fried with minced garlic. Oyster sauce, sesame oil, cooking wine, and a slurry of cornstarch and water were then added to the Chinese vegetables to make the sauce.

The giant plate of noodles was devoured in less than 20 minutes. I thought it was crazy how quickly we finished dinner. The noodles were pretty good. I thought this was one of the better batches of stir fried noodles my parents made.

We don’t make pasta nearly enough. I’m not sure why. The opposite is true about making noodle soup. A handful of our family, including Lucy and Jimmy, are sick of pho and Phnom Penh noodles. On the other hand, I can enjoy noodle soup every week. Actually, I’m craving pho right now. Anyway, I still think that ordering noodles for takeout is a bad idea. Even if you order a noodle dish without a sauce, I think the whole dish changes, for the worse, when it sits in the container. I don’t think I can ever get sick of noodles, noodles soup, or pasta.

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Christmas Dinners

(Last updated: Feb. 4th, 2011 at 21:47)

I love Christmas because of the quality family time. In our family, Christmas means that most of our extended family in Ottawa is all together under one rooftop. Sometimes we even have relatives who visit from Toronto.

Although the holiday is always fun, one aspect of the holiday is getting a bit tiresome. Christmas dinner. We make the same dishes every year: turkey, ham, my uncle’s famous heart of palm salad, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey gravy, and garlic bread. 

As a kid, I always looked forward to our Christmas dinners because we only make and eat turkey dinners twice a year (the two occasions being Thanksgiving and Christmas). The excitement just isn’t there anymore.

This was the spread during our 2009 Christmas dinner.

For dessert, M made a few apple pies and mom brought over krop knao.

Christmas dinner was essentially the same this year, other than a few differences...

My mom usually makes something to snack on before we start making the turkey dinner. Something to keep our stomachs from being empty, ya know? Mom made hang jing bian (aka ham chim peng or bánh tiêu) two years ago. She had just started to experiment with the sweet dough a few months earlier.

In addition to the usual mashed potatoes, Lucy made scalloped potatoes this year.

Desserts are usually different every year. My aunt brought over her homemade Vietnamese dessert called che suong hot luu. There were also chocolate chip cookies that A and E made.

Our Christmas dinners are in a dire need of a makeover, though I’m not sure our family agrees. It's pretty much the same thing, year after year. To further my point take a look at our 2007 and 2008 Christmas dinners. I would love to change up the sides, but can't think of anything. Do you have a favourite side dish that we could make for our next Christmas dinner?

Pre-Christmas Baking

Earlier this week, we invited our younger cousins over to do some pre-Christmas baking. Lucy had two recipes in her recipe box that I wanted to make/wanted the kids to make (with supervision, of course); shortbread and chocolate chip cookies. Both recipes are simple and quick to make – perfect for kids around the age of 10 to make by themselves. Just be there to make sure they measure ingredients properly, mix thoroughly, pre-heat the oven, etc.  

I think kids should be involved in the kitchen really early (5 years +), even if they don’t want to cook/bake. Sadly, it’s a huge life skill that a lot of people lack these days.


Lucy and I are huge fans of Anna Olson. Her recipes not only produce really tasty treats, and always turn out really well. I mean, you’d think that recipes would always turn out when you follow them – which we actually do (sometimes), but that’s not always the case.

Kimchi Teaser

A few weeks back, Lucy made kimchi from scratch! Lucy will go into more details later, but for now, here's a glimpse into our (multiple) kimchi dinners.







Stay tuned for recipes!