Chinese Bok Choy Char Siu (Barbecued Pork) Wonton Noodle Soup

Since I used the leftover Char Siu/Xa Xiu (Chinese/Vietnamese Barbequed Pork) to make Chinese Char Siu (Barbecued Pork) Bok Choy Chow Fun (Rice Noodle) Stir-Fry, I needed another batch for this Chinese wonton noodle soup with barbecued pork and bok choy. Considering it's one of my favorite noodle soups, I was reminded that I hadn't blogged a recipe until a Wandering Chopsticks reader (Thanks Tu Anh!) mentioned on my Facebook page that she was making my barbecued pork recipe for just that purpose.

For the wontons, I used the Hoanh Thanh Thit Heo Bam, Dau Hu, Hanh La (Vietnamese Wontons with Ground Pork, Tofu, and Green Onions) that I recently made with the niece and nephew, but feel free to use any wonton recipe of your choice. Then it's just a matter of making a broth, boiling some egg noodles, and blanching some bok choy.

Canh Ga Xa Xiu (Vietnamese / Chinese Char Siu-Style Barbecued Chicken Wings)

Lazy post. Lazy recipe. :)

Unless you specifically want to make Chinese barbecue-styled chicken wings, the easiest thing to do is to toss in a few pounds of wings in the same pan that you're making Xa Xiu/Char Siu (Vietnamese Chinese Barbecued Pork).

I mean seriously, why make more work for yourself than necessary?

But just for you, I've included the recipe for the marinade below in case you love wings that much, or don't eat pork, or what have you.

Chinese Char Siu (Barbecued Pork) Bok Choy Chow Fun (Rice Noodle) Stir-Fry

At my mom's request, while she was in town recently, I made some Char Siu/Xa Xiu (Chinese/Vietnamese Barbecued Pork) for dinner and had about a quarter pound's worth of leftovers.

I had a good amount of sauce leftover too. I was debating whether to buy some more pork and bake it in the sauce, when I decided that it would make the perfect stir-fry sauce. Just add some fresh rice noodles and bok choy and it won't even look like you're trying to use up leftovers. Of course, you're welcome to make Chinese barbecued pork if you especially want to make this recipe. If you want to cheat and buy some pork from the Chinese barbecue shop, you can use oyster sauce in lieu of excess marinade as the stir-fry sauce. Caution: make sure you use the excess marinade that has already been cooked with the pork, don't use marinade from raw pork.

Since lil' sis loooves bok choy and rice noodles, this dish would have been right up her alley. Except she had a stomachache and wanted to just lay in bed. The lure of chow fun called to her though, so she crept out to the kitchen to pick at the wok for a bit. Then a little while later when her stomach had settled down some more, she came out to eat some more. And more. Now, I'm not saying this dish cures stomachaches, but I swear lil' sis felt much better after eating it! :)

Trung Hap Va Chien Nuoc Cham (Vietnamese Fried Hard-Boiled Eggs with Fish Dipping Sauce)

I was introduced to fried hard-boiled eggs when I made a Burmese Golden Egg Curry last year. I knew about the general idea of deep frying hard-boiled eggs from a Thai Son-in-Law Eggs recipe in one of my cookbooks, but hadn't actually tried making it until that point.

The Burmese egg curry was followed by Indonesian Fried Hard-Boiled Eggs Sambal that I ate at my neighbors' twins' birthday party, which prompted me to attempt an at-home version.

Then came the Thai version with tamarind sauce and fried shallots.

So I figured I should come up with a Vietnamese version. Nothing fussy. No curries or difficult sauces, just deep-fried hard-boiled eggs with chili fish dipping sauce. I did borrow the Burmese trick of adding some turmeric to the frying oil to turn the eggs this gorgeous golden color. My trick for easy hard-boiled eggs is to put them in my electric steamer for about 12 minutes if I'm going to further cook with them, or 15 minutes if I want them harder-steamed to eat immediately. Seriously so easy.

And if you're an egg fan like my brother's wife is, she couldn't resist asking if she could try a bite before I had finished making Hoanh Thanh Thit Heo Bam, Dau Hu, Hanh La (Vietnamese Wontons with Ground Pork, Tofu, and Green Onions) for dinner.

Hoanh Thanh Thit Heo Bam, Dau Hu, Hanh La (Vietnamese Wontons with Ground Pork, Tofu, and Green Onions)

If I could impart only one kitchen wisdom, it would be this: have fun.

Sure presentation matters since a dish that is visually appealing makes you more likely to eat it. And of course, there are ingredients and preparation and all that.

But what it really comes down to is that familiarity in the kitchen, working with ingredients, preparing food to feed your loved ones, none of it happens really if you don't enjoy yourself first. My favorite childhood memories in the kitchen were spent listening to my Ba Noi (Vietnamese Paternal Grandmother) tell stories while wiping banana leaves for her famous Banh Nam (Vietnamese Steamed Flat Rice Dumplings with Pork and Shrimp). As I got older, she'd assign more tasks, teaching me little tricks along the way, such as deveining shrimp with a toothpick or adding salt to kill any bugs when I rinsed herbs. When I cooked, she always praised what I made, no matter how simple.

In contrast, my mother was very exacting about presentation without a lot of explanation about the process. And while there are lessons to be learned there too, I found this method makes cooking seem more like work. Through the years, I've heard from friends and readers who hated being in the kitchen for precisely that reason, that cooking seemed like drudgery, that they were rebelling against the expectation that women had to do the cooking. Or since cooking, especially Vietnamese food, seemed like such a vague process, with instructions being to add a little bit of this and that, that they didn't know where to start. Or that the slicing and folding they did wasn't pretty, so they were shooed away from preparation. All of which makes being in the kitchen no fun at all.

I've been cooking with my niece for a while, and also now with my nephew since he turned 2 years old. I hope they're enjoying themselves as much as I am teaching them. While we've made plenty of baked goods, the niece's favorite foods are noodles and dumplings. I make the filling and separate the wonton skins, but leave the folding all up to them. Sure, their technique needs a bit of work, but after being boiled, you can't even tell.