中文菜谱: 菠菜猫耳朵面

There is about 1/3 bunch spinach left in the refrigerator. It is not enough to do any stir frying, so I make some spinch cavatelli noodles out of it.

As a matter of fact, in Chinese there is another cute interesting name for noodles in this shape: cat’s ears. Those pointed tips do look like cat’s ears.

Ingredients:

1/3 bunch spinach
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cup bread flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 cup water
boiling water and a pinch of salt (for blanching spinach)

Directions：

Fill a large bowl with water and ice.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add a pinch of salt and spinach. Get the spinach out as soon as the color turns dark green, and shock it with iced water.

Drain the spinach. Place it to vitamix (from amazon) container; add water and blender until smooth; the smoother the better.

Add flour, salt, spinach mixture and oil to a KitchenAid mixing bowl (from amazon).

Turn on stand mixer, and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place dough on a board dusted with flour; shape it into a ball; covered and let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes.

With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch in height. Cut it into thumb nail sized squares.

Divide them and dust with flour again.

On a gnocchi paddle (from amazon), push down those tiny dough squares and push forward at the same time. You will get those little cute cat ears with marks.

Dust with flour so that they won’t stick together.

Every time I make them, that sensational scene from Godfather comes to my mind. Vincent Mancini and Mary Corleone were making gnocchi.

It is really nice to cook and enjoy a lovely dinner with your loved one, isn’t it?

Ok, let’s get back to our cat ears.

Ingredients:

1 piece pork shoulder, (3 to 5 oz) , thinly sliced
a handful of dried chili pepper, cut into halves
1/2 cup dried daikon (available in Asian grocery store), diced
1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper
2 to 3 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice cooking wine
2 gloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced or minced
2 to 3 chicken stock or water
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sugar
salt to taste
2 to 3 tablespoon oil for cooking
water (for boiling noodles)

Directions:

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add a pinch of salt and spinach noodles. Cook until they float, about 2 to 3 minutes. Drain them well.

Heat a wok over medium high heat; add oil, garlic and Sichuan pepper corns. When garlic turns color, add pork, salt, black pepper and rice cooking wine. Stir fry over high heat until the pork is golden brown. Add spinach noodles, salt, soy sauce, sugar to taste. Stir in chicken stock, and cook together for another 1 or 2 minutes.

Serve immediately.