Cute baby, sleep-talking, wide rice noodles

There are three topics in this post. See title for details.

1. Cute baby. On Saturday, Denny, my parents, my grandparents and I all went to Dubuque to see my cousin Debi’s new baby, Meredith. She is extremely cute. She was also very mellow; she spent most of the day either sleeping or looking around. She only cried for about one second, and that was very quickly remedied with nourishment.

2. Sleep-talking taken very seriously. I’m glad I don’t live in a world in which I’m legally bound to the things I say in my sleep. Sheesh! This couple in India is being required by local Islamic personal law to enact the divorce the husband requested in his sleep, even though they don’t want to. I wonder why they ever bothered to tell anyone.

3. Wide rice noodles. I’ve had a few requests for the recipe for fresh wide rice noodles. Here’s what I did, and it worked pretty well.

WIDE RICE NOODLES

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups white rice
• 1.5 cups water
• vegetable oil

Equipment:

• A blender
• A large steamer (I didn’t have one, so I invented one by putting four large spoons in the bottom of a big dutch oven rounded side up, adding water until the spoons weren’t quite submerged, then putting a cake pan on top of the spoons)
• 9-inch in diameter cake pan
• A brush for spreading the oil
• A cutting board and sharp, skinny knife

Method:

1. Soak the rice overnight in the water.
2. Put the whole mess in a blender and blend for about 8 minutes, or until the mixture is very smooth and you can hardly feel any graininess between your fingers. Blend longer if needed; err on the side of too smooth rather than not smooth enough.
3. Dribble about a teaspoon of vegetable oil into the cake pan and spread it out on the bottom and sides with the brush.
4. Put the cake pan in the steamer and steam for five minutes.
5. Open the steamer and pour about half a cup of rice batter into the cake pan, or whatever it takes to get a thin layer on the bottom. Close steam and steam for three minutes.
6. Open the steamer and dribble some more oil onto the cooked rice layer. Spread out with the brush. Add another layer of rice batter. Close and steam for three minutes.
7. Repeat step 6 until all the batter is gone. Close and steam for 5 minutes to set the whole thing.
8. Remove (carefully; it’s hot) the cake pan from the steamer and invert onto a cutting board. Cut the slab into sections about 1 inch thick, then width-wise however you prefer your noodles to be sized. Separate out the layers, and bam, you have wide rice noodles.
9. Use immediately, or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and use within 1-2 days.

I’m happy with how these noodles turn out, but I still haven’t managed a satisfactory sauce. All my sauces seem too drippy or something. I think it’s because I’m using the same basic recipe as I use for dishes I serve with rice, and rice is more absorbent in grain form than noodle form.

4 responses to “Cute baby, sleep-talking, wide rice noodles”

1. map says:

   3/27/2006 at 10:10 am

   That is a cute baby. Ava would’ve loved that bib.

   I wonder why they ever bothered to tell anyone.

   Are they bloggers?

2. erin says:

   3/27/2006 at 7:22 pm

   those noodles sound good. do you know if you were going to add seasoning to the noodles if it would break up the rice/bonding. i dont know much about rice noodles, but when reading i imagined a big pile of noodles with spicy curry spices with yogurt on it. does that sound bad… it sounds really good to me right now.

3. kennedy says:

   9/9/2007 at 12:22 pm

   your babby is a cutie

4. Norris says:

   7/12/2010 at 12:15 pm

   A bit late for this post, but for anyone coming here, the ideal recipe for wide rice noodles is the Malaysian dish Char Kueh (pronounced and sometimes spelt as Kway) Teow (as for meow)

   You will need
   1 tspn garlic paste
   1 tspn Sambal Oelek (Chilli paste but Thai or Malaysian is best)

   (The above two ingredients can be adjusted for your taste, the above quantities giving a mild kick in the teeth. Add more for more bite. Personally I prefer to actually taste my food, but each to their own.)

   1 Tbsp oil peanut, or rapeseed or similar non flavouring oil.
   a good fistful of rice noodles.
   a couple of handfuls of mung bean sprouts
   1 or 2 chinese sausage sliced finely straight across or diagonal
   1 Egg
   A good glug of Kecap Manis which is a thickened and slightly sweetened soy sauce.
   Spring onion green tops cut into 1 inch 2.5cm lengths. The US calls them scalions I seem to remember when I lived there but also known in different countries variously as salad onion, onion sticks or green onion. (I don’t care what you use the rest of the onion for. Garnish, salad ingredient etc)

   Any combination of the following.
   Large Prawns
   Squid (opened out and scored on the inside then cut into 1 inch (2.5cm) squares.
   Cockles

   Although this is usually a seafood based dish, I have had it in Singapore with thinly sliced chicken or beef and have even had it with green bell peppers in it.

   This is really a free for all recipe which allows you to put anything at all (almost) into it.

   Heat a wok on high until smoking. Add the oil. You can be reasonably generous with the oil and add a little more if you like.
   Add the garlic and chilli paste and stir. Add the squid if using. The high heat and scoring should make the pieces curl up into tubes, but if they don’t, it doesn’t matter, it still tastes fine.

   Add the other flavouring ingredients of your choice as in the chinese sausage, seafood, etc. when they are cooked or well heated, add the noodles, stirring all the time.

   Once everything is well coated with the oil/garlic/chilli mixture, clear a little space in the base of the wok, break in the egg, and stir vigorously so that the egg mixes properly with the ingredients.

   Some version I’ve had, use the whole egg, while others use just the whites. I use the whole, because oif I separate the yolk out I usually have to throw it away after a week because I haven’t used it for anything.

   Now is the time to add the Kecap Manis. You want enough to get a small amount of “gravy” coating everything. Then add the bean sprouts and just before serving, stir in the onion tops until everytihng is heated through.

   Serve and enjoy!!! I love this dish. Made it last night.

   The is should be sufficent for 2 people – or one greedy little piggy, not looking at anyone in particular.

   It can also be padded out to go further by adding more noodles and sprouts. Very economical.

   As I seem to have implied, the basic ingredients are the garlic/chilli/oil, noodles, beansprouts, chinese sausage, egg, and kecap manis are the basic ingredients, and none of them have to be accurately measured. More spicy? Add more chilli and garlic (about equal quantities) anything else is entirely up to you, but as I quite like the seafood version (the first one I tasted) I tend to make that. I have even left out the egg or sausage sometimes (as I do it all from memory – ’nuff said) and although it changes the taste slightly doesn’t detract too much.

   The chinese sausage is the chipolata sized ones which are slightly sweetened and can be bought dried and will keep well.