Tag Archives: Hakka noodles

Hakka noodle bowl

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Hakka Ginger Chicken Noodle Bowl is easy, healthy, and zesty.

Many Hakka dishes have the reputation for being heavy, fatty, dark, and salty. This new Hakka Noodle Bowl, defies that stereotype. I combined the two easiest and shortest recipes in The Hakka Cookbook, to create a zesty, colorful, noodle bowl that appeals to today’s taste for lighter, healthier food.


Start with Steeped Chicken Breasts (page 22 of The Hakka Cookbook). The lean chicken gently cooks in the residual heat of boiling water. Cool and tear the moist meat into coarse shreds. You can also use leftover cooked chicken or meat from a purchased rotisserie bird.


The zesty Fresh Ginger-Onion Sauce (page 66) brightly seasons the chicken and noodles. This sauce combines lots of fresh minced fresh ginger, green onion, and garlic. Pour boiling hot oil over the mixture to lightly temper the pungency. The sauce is often served with salt-baked, steamed, or poached chicken, but I find it also adds a vibrant lively flavor to noodles, seafood, and vegetables.


Cook your noodle of choice–I like Chinese wheat noodles or soba. Mix noodles with the ginger sauce and soy sauce to taste. Place in large bowls. Top noodles with mounds of cooked shredded chicken and slivered vegetables. Offer extra ginger sauce to add to taste. Enjoy–you will love this fresh, light noodle bowl.

Hakka Ginger Chicken Noodle Bowl

You can scale this recipe up or down. The chicken and sauce can be prepared a day ahead, cover and chill. Use leftover Ginger-Onion Sauce on salads, noodles, seafood, and vegetables.

Makes 2 or 3 main dish servings

6 ounces dry Chinese wheat noodles or Japanese soba
Fresh Ginger-Onion Sauce (page 66 of The Hakka Cookbook, makes about 3/4 cup)
Soy sauce
1 1/2 to 2 cups coarsely shredded cooked chicken (Steeped Chicken Breasts, page 22 of The Hakka Cookbook)
Salt to taste
2 to 3 cups slivered or thinly sliced vegetables such as cucumbers, carrots, jicama, radishes, cherry tomatoes, cabbage, red bell pepper, red onion (choose 3 to 6)
Cilantro leaves for garnish
Chile sauce (optional)

1. Cook noodles in boiling water as directed on package. Drain and rinse well with cold water. Drain.

2. In a large bowl mix noodles with 3 to 4 tablespoons Ginger-Onion Sauce and 2 to 3 tablespoons soy sauce, or to taste. Place noodles in 2 or 3 large serving bowls.

3. Mix chicken with about 3 tablespoons Ginger-Onion Sauce, 2 to 3 teaspoons soy sauce, and salt to taste. Mound equal portions of chicken on each bowl of noodles. Arrange mounds of vegetables on noodles. Drizzle vegetables with a little of the Ginger-Onion Sauce, offer remaining sauce to add to taste. Garnish bowls with cilantro. If desired, offer chile sauce and soy sauce to add to taste. Mix lightly to eat.

Chinese New Year feast

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Happy Chinese New Year!

Plan your menu for the symbol-laden Chinese New Year feast now. The lunar new year is fast approaching.

In 2020, January 25 marks the beginning of the Chinese year 4717. The celebration marks a time of renewal, marked by food, traditions, and festivities. On the Chinese horoscope, each year is dominated by an animal sign: Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey rooster, dog, and pig. Each animal has special characteristics. This is the year of the rat.

A family reunion feast highlights the New Year celebration. The table is traditionally filled with foods that send auspicious messages to attract wealth, luck, success, unity, longevity.
As I plan the menu for our family’s new year feast, I’m looking through The Hakka Cookbook for ideas. I like our meals to be a cooperative effort, sort of an organized potluck plus cooking lesson. It’s easier to share cooking duties and hopefully everyone can learn something new.

For my grandchildren, I try to include one cooking activity. In the past, we have made wontons, dumplings, and pot stickers. This year we may make Stuffed Tofu (pages 31, 33). The Hakka invented stuffed tofu when they could not find wheat flour in their new home in the south to make the dumplings they ate in their former home in northern China. Instead of putting the meat filling in a wheat flour wrapper, they stuffed the filling into chunks of tofu.

Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce from The Hakka Cookbook

Noodles represent long life. I like the dark, umami-rich flavor of Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce (page 104). Or perhaps we’ll cook Garlic Noodles and Shrimp (page 193), sort of a Hakka-style Chow Mein.

Fish is a must-have on Chinese New Year table. The fish brings surplus and abundance to the new year. I like Steamed Fish with Green Onions (page 39). Steaming keeps the delicate flesh moist and is so easy.

A green vegetable represents growth in business. I love the simplicity of the stir-fried Chinese Broccoli in Sweet Rice Wine (page 230).

Possibly we may cook the famous Hakka Salt-baked Chicken (page 64) or some of the easier variations or maybe we’ll buy a Chinese roast duck. What’s on your menu?

Hakka Salt-Baked Chicken from The Hakka Cookbook

For me, Chinese New Year is about food and family. Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous New Year! ????! Khiung Hee Fat Choy! Gong Hay Fat Choy!

Chinese cooking videos

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grokkerAs much as I try to convey foolproof directions through written recipes, comprehension soars when a person can actually watch the process. See it and the technique becomes instantly clear.

So when a new food and fitness video website grokker.com asked me to demonstrate Chinese cooking for their videos, I agreed. They take care of the production; I provide the recipes and demo. It’s a new challenge for me. I am still learning how to talk, look at the camera, and cook in front of the camera–all at the same time without an accident.

We shoot five recipes in one day of intense production. It takes a long time just to set up the lights. There’s also the camera angle, food set-up, and action.  So far, we have shot about 20 recipes. They recently released eight new videos that we shot a few months ago.

To see the videos, you will be asked to register (free either through email or Facebook.) Then you will be able to see previews or limited videos free. If you become a paid subscriber, you have complete access to cooking videos on many cuisines and subjects such as gluten-free, techniques, and baking. There is also a wide selection of yoga and fitness videos.

Here are my newly released cooking videos. Some are Hakka dishes.

Hakka Chinese Noodles with Pork and Mushroom Sauce comes from a meal I ate in Singapore. The dark earthy flavors of the pork and mushroom sauce taste distinctively Hakka. It’s an easy dish to put together for a weeknight meal. Recipe also on page 104 of The Hakka Cookbook.

broccoli beefHealthy Broccoli Beef, a popular Chinese restaurant offering, is easy to make at home. Also it is healthier and fresher tasting. Use readily available ingredients to make this quick dish that is likely to become a family favorite.

Homemade Potstickers with Ground Pork and Vegetables shows how easy it is to make these pan-browned dumplings.

Steeped Chinese Ginger Chicken in Little Lettuce Cups demonstrates an effortless Chinese technique to cook chicken breast so it maintains its succulence. Shred the meat and serve with a fresh ginger sauce. Serve in lettuce leaves for an appetizer. This variation is based on Steeped Chicken Breasts (page 22) and Fresh Ginger Onion Sauce (page 66) in The Hakka Cookbook.

Sweet and Sour PorkChinese Sweet and Sour Pork shows my light and healthier version of a popular take-out classic. I skip the deep-frying step and use fresh pineapple for a fresher taste.

Healthy Chinese Cashew Chicken with Peas is an easy stir-fry combining lean chicken breast and crunchy pea pods.

Sichuan Hot and Sour Soup unravels the mystery of the complex flavors of this soup. It’s easier to make than you think.

Spicy Sichuan Green Beans with Ground Pork adds zesty flavors to green beans.