Xi'an Cumin Lamb with Scissor-Cut Noodles

Now that my foot is almost better and I am in a walking boot, I can at long last get back in the kitchen and start cooking again. Ann showed me a photo a few times recently of a dish that is something of a current-day internet phenomenon, cumin lamb noodles modelled after the New York restaurant chain Xi'an Fine Foods.

Xi'an Cumin Lamb with Scissor-Cut Noodles

And so on our last foray to the grocery store, my first since early February (you don't know what a blessing it is to be able to do your own shopping until you cannot), we got some lamb to make the dish. We would have liked to have got some shoulder or loin, but that's really only available at the as-yet-unopened-for-the-season farmers market, so we settled for ground lamb.

Our original thought was to make some of our typical pasta dough (egg pasta of about half all-purpose flour and half semolina) hand-cut into wide flat noodles, but that egg pasta did not sit well with me because it is atypical in China. Meanwhile, I had been reading about various styles of Chinese noodles and decided to make some wonderful looking scissor-cut noodles.

Noodle Dough Resting

The noodle dough is merely a couple cups of all-purpose flour, some Kosher salt, and enough water to bring it together into a shaggy dough. I kneaded the dough just enough to bring it into a ball and let it rest on the counter under film for a couple of hours to hydrate. Then later in the afternoon, I kneaded the dough into a smooth paste to develop the gluten. I let it rest for another hour or so before we started on dinner.

Right after making the dough, I toasted the spices, one part Sichuan peppercorns and three parts cumin. At the same time, I heated a quarter cup of oil with a tablespoon of chile flakes to make some chile oil (which is much better made to order than in bulk because it goes rancid fairly quickly).

Toasting Sichuan Peppercorns and Cumin

Oil and Chile Flakes Becoming Chile Oil

When we were ready to eat dinner, Ann and I attacked it together. She started the lamb while I cut pieces of dough into a pan of boiling water. The lamb is a quick sauté of onions, spicy green chiles, and ground lamb seasoned with the ground spices that I toasted earlier. To finish the sauce, she added some soy sauce, chile oil, sesame oil, black vinegar, and a bit of sugar.

Ann Making the Lamb Sauce

Cooking the Noodles

In cooking the noodles, I treated them just like gnocchi or spätzle, removing them from the pan once they floated. It could not have been simpler. The final dish we garnished with (much) more chile oil, sesame seeds, and cilantro.

Delicious Xi'an Cumin Lamb with Scissor-Cut Noodles

We're definitely making these noodles again, one, because they are so easy to make, and two, because they satisfy our desire for pasta with body (you might guess by that, that we are no fans of capellini). The sauce needs work. We hewed closely to a recipe from the web, but now we feel free to make it our own.

Our next version needs to be spicier and funkier, plus I feel like I want a higher ratio of Sichuan peppercorns in the spice mix. I'm thinking of starting with fermented soy paste and creating a dish more akin to zha jiang mian. Good thing the farmers market opens in a week or so, giving us access to locally raised lamb shoulder.

Sesame Udon with Chile Oil, Shrimp, and Lop Cheung

Here's a dead simple and utterly delicious meal from the weekend. Ann spied a dish in a cooking magazine, a dish called something like Sesame Noodles with Chile Oil and Scallions, and she asked me to make that dish, adding lop cheung and shrimp.

Sesame Udon with Chile Oil, Shrimp, and Lop Cheung

I have just turned Ann on to lop cheung in the last few years and she loves it. What's not to love about a bit of porky sweetness in a dish, though? And I know that she likes big thick udon in preference to thinner noodles (and so do I) so I made the dish with Japanese udon rather than thinner Chinese mien.

Ten Ingredients, Ten Minutes!

What I love about this dish, besides the awesome flavor, is that it has 10 ingredients and takes no more than 10 minutes to put on the table. You see the ingredients above. The garnishes are slivered garlic, sliced green onions, peeled shrimp, and sliced lop cheung. The sauce ingredients from left to right: roasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, agave (use any kind of sweetener you like), and tamari (again, use your favorite soy sauce).

The star of the show for me and the tenth ingredient is the chile oil, below, made by pouring some oil into a pan and adding a few tablespoons of chile flakes and heating to just the boil, then turning it off and letting the oil flavor while prepping the rest of the dinner.

Chile Oil

For the dressing for a pound (500g) of noodles, start with 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sweetener, 1 tablespoon chile oil, and 1 tablespoon sesame oil.

The assembly of this dish couldn't be simpler: mix the dressing in a big bowl; cook the garlic, shrimp, and lop cheung; refresh the udon in boiling water; mix all the ingredients in the bowl with the dressing and the green onions. Toss and let it stand for a minute. Adjust seasonings to your taste. I wanted more soy and chile oil; Ann wanted more sweetener in hers. We each adjusted our own bowls.

Awesome, easy, ten ingredients and ten minutes!