Noodle Dishes

I enjoyed a variety of noodles in China. I especially loved the cellophane noodles that were put in soups like in this picture. I ate this soup in Changsha and it was not spicy at all. The broth was a meat broth. The soup also contained carrots, bok choy leaves and onions.

This is a picture of cellophane noodles with a spicy tomato sauce. It tasted almost like marinara sauce.

In China, it is also very common to end a meal with fried rice or noodles, which is meant to fill people up. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the noodles

Spicy Food in the Hunan Province

The Hunan province is known for its spicy food. On my trip in China, we stayed in Changsha located in the Hunan province. Almost every dish I had contained little small red peppers which were extremely HOT AND SPICY.

Spicy squid!

This is a typical school lunch at the Changsha Mingde school. The chicken, corn, and beef with green peppers had a ton of those little small peppers. It was delicious, but very very spicy!

This was the spicest dish I've ever eaten in my life. Just one bite sent my whole mouth on fire. It contained lots of red peppers, green peppers, garlic and scallions.

When I was in Changsha, the mother in my homestay family made this bowl of noodles, with egg, peppers, scallions and broth for me every morning. Noodles are a very common breakfast in China. The peppers in the soup made the soup a little too spicy for my taste, but I still enjoyed eating it. I will miss it! The hotel in Changsha also had a build your own soup section at the buffet and had these exact same ingredients to make your own soup, but the broth wasn't as good as my homestay family's.

How to cook Pasta/Noodles(CORRECTLY)

(Spinach pasta sheets cut in squares)

Tips for Cooking Pasta/ Noodles
Cooking pasta/noodles is quite simple.

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Have enough water in the pot so it's about 1 -.5 inches away from the top of the pot.

2. Once the water is boiling (forming large bubbles and rolling like a river) pour in some sea salt to salt the water. (Udon and Soba noodles do not require salt). Many recipes state to pour oil into the water to not have the pasta/noodles stick together. This is a MISCONCEPTION. As long as you are stirring every minute to 30 seconds your pasta/noodles will not stick together. Oil actually makes the pasta clump together.

3. Dump in your pasta/noodles and set the timer to the required amount of time for your pasta/noodles. Every different type of pasta cooks differently. Ex: Fresh pasta takes less than five minutes, while rigatoni/raw pasta takes at least eight minutes.

4. Stir every minute making sure the pasta/noodles are not stuck to the bottom of the pot. Make sure that your spoon is touching the bottom of the pan when you are stirring.

5. When the timer goes off, it's obviously time to dump out your pasta. Get a strainer ready and pour the pasta and water into the strainer. Get a seperate bowl ready to pour your pasta into. If you want, you can heat the bowl up by pouring the water from the pot that you used to cook your pasta/noodles in and heat it up for two seconds that way.

Be sure to not let your noodles/pasta stick to each other.

6. Pour/ Put whatever sauce you prepared onto your noodles/pasta and mix well. Pasta that has the sauce only on the top makes the nooodles stick together underneath.

7. Enjoy!