Hetty McKinnon’s brand new cookbook, To Asia, With Love, is a celebration of pure flavour, with recipes for more traditional food such as congee and red curry laksa to some truly unique and inventive dishes such as buttery miso vegemite noodles and grilled wombok caesar salad with wonton crackers.
Hetty says: ‘To Asia, With Love is my homecoming, a joyous return to the humble, yet deeply nurturing flavours and meals of my childhood as a Chinese girl born in Australia. It is also a celebration of the exciting and delicious possibilities of modern Asian cooking.‘
Today, we have a recipe for celery, mushroom and leek ‘dan dan’ noodles from To Asia, With Love to share with you. Happy cooking!
Celery, mushroom and leek ‘dan dan’ noodles
Serves: 4
Vegan
Spicy, nutty, salty, with a slight acidity, dan dan noodles are full of personality, and very different from the comparatively mellow chow meins and ho funs of my childhood. Dan dan noodles come from northern China, a region known for its bold flavours and spiciness. I first came across this dish in New York, at one of the many no-name noodle houses in Chinatown; I had never eaten this type of cuisine as a child, so discovering these flavours felt exciting. A street food in Sichuan, the dish is named aer the type of pole (dan dan) used by vendors to carry baskets of noodles and sauce across their shoulders. Traditionally, dan dan noodles are made with pork and a fermented mustard pickle called sui mi ya cai (I’ve omitted this because it can be quite hard to find). My version is vegan, featuring mushrooms, celery and leek, which combine to impart an aromatic potency.
Ingredients
450 g fresh wheat noodles
vegetable or peanut oil
2 celery stalks, finely diced
1 leek, halved lengthways and finely sliced
300 g swiss brown or button mushrooms, finely diced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tablespoon toasted white sesame seeds
handful of coriander leaves
2 shallots, finely sliced
sea salt and white pepper
Everything Oil (see page 25) or chilli oil, to serve
Dan dan sauce
2.5 cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
2 tablespoons Everything Oil (see page 25), chilli oil or chilli
flakes (or to taste)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
3 tablespoons tahini
2 teaspoons sugar
Method
For the dan dan sauce, whisk together all the ingredients with 1 tablespoon of water in a small bowl.
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Add the noodles and cook according to the packet instructions until al dente, about 3–4 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water.
In a wok or large frying pan set over medium–high heat, drizzle about 1 tablespoon of oil, then add the celery and leek and cook for 2–3 minutes until soſtened and fragrant. Add the mushroom and garlic and cook for 4–5 minutes. The mushroom will release a lot of juice as it cooks – let it evaporate, then continue cooking until it turns golden and starts to caramelise. Season with two big pinches of sea salt and a small pinch of white pepper and remove from the heat.
Add the noodles to the mushroom mixture and pour in the dan dan sauce. Toss to combine, making sure the noodles are well coated. Top with the sesame seeds, coriander and shallot and drizzle with everything oil or chilli oil.
Substitute
fresh noodles: 300 g dried noodles, any variety
tahini: peanut butter
use rice noodles or glass noodles for gluten free
–Extracted from To Asia, With Love by Hetty McKinnon (Plum, RRP $39.99), with photography by Hetty McKinnon. Out now.
To Asia, With Love
'To Asia, With Love is my homecoming, a joyous return to the humble, yet deeply nurturing flavours and meals of my childhood as a Chinese girl born in Australia. It is also a celebration of the exciting and delicious possibilities of modern Asian cooking.'
Recipes range from the traditional - salt and pepper eggplant, red curry laksa, congee, a perfectly simple egg, pea and ginger fried rice - to Hetty's uniquely modern interpretations, such as buttery miso vegemite noodles, stir-fried salt and...
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