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Tombee hates rice and I hate noodles. In order to be fair, I always alternate one day of noodles with one day of rice and so I'm always on the lookout for new noodle recipes. I saw black pepper udon on a blog and I decided to try making my own black pepper noodles, but with hao fan instead of udon. Hao Fan is a fresh flat rice noodle and comes in sliced sheets that are packaged. Usually when you purchase it fresh, it's quite hard because it's cold, so the best way to soften it is by steaming for a few minutes until the noodles are soft and pliable. Once soft, they are silky smooth and absorb sauces extremely well. Unfortunately despite its delicious taste, the noodles look quite ugly when mixed with the sauce and doesn't photograph well but I can assure you that despite the dodgy picture, the noodles are really delicious. The tenderness of the beef echoed the soft, smooth texture of the noodles and the slight sweetness in the beef from the mirin brought out the sweetness of the hoisin sauce in the black pepper sauce.
Cooking the beef with the snow peas and carrots
Black Pepper Beef Hao Fan
Ingredients
1/2lb beef, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon baking soda
900 gram package hao fan
1 1/2 cups snow peas
1 cup carrots, julienned
1 tablespoon oil
Marinade
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon cooking wine
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Black Pepper Sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons kecap manis (indonesian sweet soy sauce)
1 tablespoon cooking wine
1 teaspoon mirin
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
Directions
1. Marinate beef with baking soda for 15 minutes. Wash beef thoroughly of baking soda.
2. Mix marinade ingredients together and pour over beef and massage marinade into beef.
3. Bring a pot of water to boil and place steaming rack inside. Place hao fan on a heatproof plate and place on steaming rack. Steam for a few minutes until hao fan is soft. Set aside.
4. Mix sauce ingredients and set aside.
5. Heat oil in pan and add carrots. Cook for 1 minute, then add 2 tablespoons water and cover for a minute until carrots are slightly softened.
6. Move carrots to edge of pan and add a teaspoon of oil in the middle. Add beef and leave for 1 minute without stirring so that beef can brown. After one minute, stir beef around so that the second side gets browned.
7. Add snow peas when beef is 80% cooked and mix beef, carrots and snow peas together. Cover for 1 minute. Snow peas should be crisp and cooked by this time. If the snow peas are not cooked, add 1 tablespoon water and cover for another minute.
8. Add softened hao fan to pan and stir to mix noodles with beef and veggies. Add sauce and mix well so that noodle mixture is entirely coated with sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. 
Teriyaki ready made sauce is prevalent today and very inexpensive to purchase in grocery stores. Wikipedia states that the word teriyaki is derived "from the noun teri (照り?), which refers to a shine or luster given by the sugar content in the tare, and yaki (焼き?), which refers to the cooking method of grilling or broiling. Traditionally the meat is dipped in or brushed with sauce several times before and during cooking." The traditional teriyaki sauce, made up of equal parts soy sauce, mirin and sake is incredibly easy to make and tastes much better than the store bought stuff. You can choose to braise meats in the teriyaki sauce, grill it or bake it in the oven. I've braised some cut up chicken thighs in the teriyaki sauce in order to infuse the chicken with the sweet marinade but any method will produce delicously glazed sweetness when brushed with the marinade.
Braising the chicken in the teriyaki sauce
Chicken Teriyaki
Ingredients
1lb chicken thighs, cut into 2 sections or any other chicken parts
1" knob ginger, sliced into 3 pieces
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 green onion, cut into 2" sections
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup sake (substitute with chinese cooking wine if unavailable)
1 tablespoon oil
1 green onion, thinly sliced (for garnish)
Directions
1. In a small saucepan, combine soy sauce, mirin and sake and bring to a boil. The sauce should be slightly thickened.
2. Heat oil in a pan and add ginger, garlic and green onions. Cook until fragrant, then add chicken. Cook for another minute until chicken starts to brown.
3. Pour sauce over chicken and stir to coat. Bring to a boil, then turn heat down and cover and simmer until chicken is cooked.
4. Sauce should have reduced to a syrupy glaze on the chicken but if you would like sauce to reduce even further, uncover and cook on high heat until sauce is reduced. Transfer chicken to plate and garnish with sliced green oniones.
There once lived a king and a queen and the king was completely attended to by his queen. She did everything in the castle and even had to spoon feed him sometimes when he became extra lazy. They were completely smitten with each other and lived in harmony and happiness. However, one day the devil came to visit the kingdom and stayed for a while. Life was difficult and the king was so distracted that he didn't even have time to let the queen spoon feed him anymore. The king and queen were unhappy and managed to evict the devil from the castle for a short period of time, but not much time had passed before the devil managed to insinuate himself back into the castle. The devil's name? You guessed it - Modern Warfare 2! I know some of you ladies out there have had the pleasure of the devil's stay, either for a short time or you may still be enjoying its pleasant company, and can commiserate with me over this intrusion into life. It's like a second wife, and gets all the attention and none of the grief. The most annoying thing about MW2? Since Tombee's hogging the TV, I still haven't been able to watch Julie & Julia! It's a tough life I tell ya...
But, the show must go on. This dish was nice with a hint of spiciness. I would have added more curry paste since I adore super hot food but because Tombee sweats like an Eskimo in fur in 40 degree weather when he eats "spicy" food, I didn't add as much as I would have liked. The hoisin sauce complemented the heat in the dish well by tempering a lot of the spiciness with an almost caramelized sweetness. I cooked the beans until they were barely done and were still extremely crisp, which added a nice textural contrast to the soft squid. Of course I probably don't need to say that Tombee's food went ice cold while he was in the devil's clutches...waste of my efforts I tell ya!
Red Curry Squid and Green Beans
Ingredients
1lb squid, cut into rings
1lb green beans, ends trimmed
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 birds eye chili, thinly sliced and seeds discarded
1 tablespoon oil
Sauce
1-2 tablespoon red curry paste (depending on how spicy you want it)
3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon water
Directions
1. Mix sauce ingredients and set aside.
2. Heat oil in pan and add garlic and chili pepper. Cook until fragrant.
3. Add green beans to pan and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons water and cover for 2 minutes. The beans should be about 90% cooked. If not, add more water and cover again.
4. Add squid rings to pan and stir to mix with beans.
5. Add sauce and stir quickly to coat squid and green beans with sauce. Cook until squid is just cooked (do not overcook as squid will become rubbery). Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
6. Serve with steaming hot rice.
I am officially obsessed with beef brisket. We've had it at least once every week for almost a month. What can I say? I heart beef brisket! I love eating beef brisket at Chinese restaurants and I've always wanted to learn how to make it and now that I know how amazingly easy it is, I don't think I'll order it in a restaurant again. One note about the cut labelled beef brisket - I've talked to a few people and it seems that at the supermarkets, the cut labelled beef brisket is different from the one that Chinese markets label beef brisket as. Whenever making a Chinese recipe that calls for beef brisket, always make sure that you are buying a Chinese labelled beef brisket. I cooked mine the night before so that the fat would harden on top and I could scoop it out for the fat nazi (that means you Tombee!) but there wasn't a lot so you could skip this step. The daikon added a natural sweetness to the sauce that was heavenly. I could eat just the sauce by itself on rice, it's that delicious!
Braised Beef Brisket and Daikon In Rice Noodle Soup With Baby Bok Choy
Ingredients
Beef brisket braised in chee hou sauce (recipe follows)
Rice noodles
Chicken or veggie broth
Baby bok choy
Directions
1. Bring a pot of water to boil and add noodles. When noodles are almost done cooking, add baby bok choy and cook until noodles are soft but still slightly chewy and bok choy is cooked but still crisp. Drain and rinse with cold water.
2. Bring broth to a boil. Add a tablespoon or two of salt or soy sauce. You want the broth to be on the slightly salty side as the noodles have no taste of their own.
3. Place noodles and bok choy in a bowl and ladle hot broth into bowl. Top noodles with as much beef brisket as you would like and hide the leftovers and say you ate it all when your boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/dog asks you for more.
If you don't want to bother with the soup, after cooking the noodles, ladle beef brisket with mountains of sauce onto the noodles and you will have dry braised saucy noodles (which I prefer) instead of soup noodles.
Braised Beef Brisket in Chee Hou Sauce from Christine's Recipes
Ingredients
1 kg beef brisket, cut into chunks
1 daikon, peeled and cut into 2" chunks
1 tablespoon oil
3 slices ginger
3 star anises
2 tablespoons Lee Kum Kee Chu Hou paste
1 tablespoon madras curry powder
a small piece of rock sugar
1 green onion (garnish)
Seasoning
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon corn flour
2 tablespoons water
Directions
1. Bring a pot of water to boil and blanch beef brisket cubes for 3 minutes. Remove and drain.
2.. Heat oil in pan and sauté ginger and Chee Hou paste until fragrant. Add beef brisket chunks and stir well to coat.
3. Add star anise and a bit of rock sugar. Add enough water to cover all ingredients and bring to a boil.
4. Transfer mixture to a slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours. After 4 hours, add daikon chunks and cover and cook for another 2 hours.
5. By this time the beef should be fall apart tender. Mix seasoning ingredients together and add to beef. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.
If you don't have a slow cooker, leave beef in pan after it has come to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and simmer for two to two and a half hours until the beef is tender, then add daikon and cook for another half an hour. Serve with rice noodles. 
