Mom’s Cooking 1 - Mom's Chicken Noodle and Dumplings

Mie Ayam mama dan Pangsit ala mama (Mom’s Chicken Noodle and Dumplings)

I had a family get together in Toronto a few weeks ago and I got to taste mom’s cooking again. One of the things she cooked was my all time favorite comfort food, namely mom’s chicken noodle and dumplings. I try to follow mom’s recipe as close as I can when I cook my own Mie Ayam ala luv0food and Pork and Prawns Dumplings, but as soon as I tasted mom’s version, I could tell even from the first bite that hers was somehow… better - the flavor had that certain zing to it that mine doesn’t have. My version is not that bad though, but just not as good as hers is all. It didn’t take much prodding for her to spill the beans, in fact, she is always too happy to share all of her recipes with anyone who cares to ask. I wrote down every detail this time and I am going to try out her exact version of Mie Ayam and pangsit, soon I hope, but meanwhile I have these pictures that I took of mom’s Mie Ayam and Pangsit.

Mie Ayam

Ingredients:
A. Chicken and mushrooms topping
1) 2 cloves Garlic
2) 1 chicken breast, diced
3) 5 white mushrooms
4) 1 tbsp. soy sauce
5) 1 tsp. oyster sauce
6) A dash of white pepper
7) ½ tsp. chicken essence powder

B. Noodle sauce
1) Juice from chicken mix topping
2) Fish sauce

Direction:
Sautee garlic until fragrant, add diced chicken and mushrooms and stir-fry for a few minutes. Add the sauces and pepper and essence powder and stir for a few more minutes until cooked. Marinate cooked noodles with noodle sauce and add the chicken and mushrooms topping and vegetables.

Mom’s Dumplings

Ingredients:
1) Ground pork – marinade with a dash of cornstarch, sesame oil, soy sauce, fish sauce and white pepper (before mixing the other ingredients)
2) Ground (white) fish meat (optional)
3) Prawns or shrimps
4) Jicama/yam bean/bengkuang – peeled, cut and sliced
5) Dumpling wraps

Direction:
Mix marinated pork with ground fish and stir in one direction (the fish meat will cause the meat to be too chewy otherwise). Add jicama and prawns/shrimp to the meat mixture and stir lightly. Put a spoonful of meat mixture on each dumpling skin and wrap. Bring the dumplings to a boil twice, drain and serve.

Note: Don’t put too much cornstarch if using ground fish otherwise the mixture will be too sticky and chewy.