Munchie Monday: Orchid's Cool Tangy Noodles UPDATE

 In the past I have passed on the recipe for Orchid's Cool Tangy Noodles which I first had many years ago while I was working at Dartmouth College in the Off Campus Programs office.  One of our professors invited my colleagues and I to a Noodle Hour at the Asian Language House where she had prepared several types of noodles.  All of them were new to me.  My favorite was Orchid's noodles.  I have made them many times since for group functions.  Usually they are very well received.

This time when I made them I made a change in the actual preparation, though not in the recipe.

In the recipe:  after cooking the noodles I put them through a strainer to drain them then returned them to the pot without pouring cool water through them.  This time I poured the sauce over the still-hot noodles and carefully tossed until the sauce was all sucked up into the noodles.  I LIKED THIS!!

The thing I liked best about this method was that sauce did not drop off the noodles into the bottom of the dish, leaving the top noodles less flavorful.  Such a good thing.  

Of course, if you want to serve these noodles cool, as title suggests you want, you will need to let the noodles come to room temperature then refrigerate.  They are perfectly delicious at room temperature or slightly warm.  Dear One ALWAYS heats his bowl in the microwave, so you can eat them any way you like!

ORCHID'S TANGY COOL NOODLES 

A tangy northern-style blend of sweet, tangy and spicy tastes 

1 pound long thin Chinese egg noodles, fresh or frozen 

3 1/2 Tablespoons Chinese or Japanese sesame oil
3 1/2 Tablespoons black soy sauce
1 1/2 Tablespoons well-aged Chinese black vinegar (or balsamic vinegar if you cannot locate black vinegar)

2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1/2 - 1 Tablespoon hot chili oil
4 heaping Tablespoons thin-cut green and white scallion rings 

Bring a generous amount of unsalted water to a full rolling boil over high heat. Add the noodles and swish them with chopsticks to separate the strands. When the noodles are cooked (2-3 minutes) pour them into a large colander in the sink and run cold water through them until cold. Let drain well and place in large clean bowl.

After cooking the noodles-fluff fresh or defrosted noodles in a colander to release any tangles. Take care not to break any. In China long noodles are a metaphor for a long life. 

Make the sauce by mixing all the other ingredients together and let sit while the noodles cook and cool. Pour over the cold noodles and stir carefully. Garnish with plenty of chopped green onion

Munchie Monday: Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs!

Several times I have tried recipes/instructions on the internet for various food items.  Hard boiled eggs is one of those food items.  The last time I tried a "quick and easy hard boiled egg method, easy to peel" was a massive failure.

The instructions had you put the eggs in the microwave for a certain amount of time.  In this case, it was 5 minutes. I don't remember the other directions, but I followed them exactly.  Except that I set the timer to 3 minutes instead of 5 minutes.  At 2 minutes 55 seconds there was a loud "pop" and a crash.  The eggs had blown up.  So had the microwave.  Dear One was not AT ALL impressed with my egg-making abilities.  Buying a new appliance was not what he had budgeted at that time...

Well, fast forward six or seven years to the present day.  Today I decided to try "perfect hard boiled eggs in the Instant Pot."

The directions for these eggs say to put one cup of water in the liner bowl.  Put the raw eggs (still in the shell) in a basket inside the liner bowl.  If you don't have a basket,  use the little trivet that comes with the Instant Pot.  I put one dozen eggs in the bottom of our basket then put on the lid.

The next instruction says to press the Manual button (this gives you high pressure) and change the timer to 5 minutes.  I did this.  When the timer goes off you are supposed to let the Pot cool down naturally then put the eggs in cool water, peel them, and enjoy them.

This worked really well....EXCEPT that I was doing something else....moving stuff from one floor of the house to the other floor of the house...and did not notice the timer until the Pot had been cooling down for 25 minutes!  Oh well. 

At one point when I was still near the Pot I had heard a popping sound.  I figured right then that this was going to be another "fail", but that was not the case.  When I pulled the basket out there was one broken egg shell.  I filled the pot with cold water.  Two eggs floated to the top...never a good sign, so I pulled them out for the compost pile.   By cracking the large ends of the shells, I peeled them quickly and cleanly.  That was really nice.  The only fail here is that there is the green/blue ring around the yolk and the whites are listing towards orange. This is entirely due to the length of time I was away from the pot.  I am convinced that if I had only let the pot cool down for 10 minutes all would have been perfect.

To try these eggs out, I mushed up an egg and poured on a little bit of leftover Orchid's Cool Tangy Noodle sauce.  Pretty good.

Slightly beige eggs, but still very edible.