Sometimes you just want to appreciate a little bit of something exquisite, a slurp of delirious deliciousness in a bowl, ya know what I mean? Well, here's the perfect thing to satisfy that desire: Flounder Fish Soup Noodles 甫魚麵, a bowl of the most yummilicious noodles soaked up with stock and sprinkled with umami packed roasted flounder fish powder. Ready to slurp down in a quarter of an hour! Sounds simple, dear readers, but don't be deceived. This seeming humble bowl of noodles packs a powerful punch of flavor and satisfaction!
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| American plaice flounder from plate 107 of Oceanic Ichthyology by G. Brown Goode and Tarleton H. Bean, pub. 1896 {{PD-US}} |
First let's set the stage by talking about the ingredients. For simple dishes the importance of the ingredients become paramount. So we start with the flounder fish. Weird name and weirdo fish, two eyes on one side, amirite? But know this. This fish, salted and dried, becomes Dried Flounder Fish* 大地魚 which is an ancient Cantonese secret to b*tch umami-ness.
Proof of the pudding: Dried Flounder Fish is the base for wonton soup which as everyone knows kicks some serious umami a**!
*Note that dried flounder fish is also sometimes known as dried sole fish or dried plaice fish. But the Chinese name is always the same: 大地魚.
Here's some dried flounder fish 大地魚 having a final drying in the sun. The fish, as you can see, is sliced along the bones while fresh and the fillet folded open to expose the interior fish flesh to the sun while drying.
My hubby, whose's totally kinda of obsessed with tradition Cantonese food, tells me the original recipe for this noodle was created by Chef Liang Jing 梁敬 who worked at the famous Luk Yu Teahouse, a chef that gathered so much food cred that he was famously known as 'No. 1 Chef' or '廚師狀元'.
In the original version this little noodle dish took a quite a lot of time to make. The whole dried flounder fish was carefully pan fried until fragrant and then the meat was removed from the bones. The bones were then cooked in the soup stock until the umami fish flavor was absorbed. Bones make for awesome soup, did ya know? The noodles then were cooked in the soup, absorbing all that luscious fish bone flavor. The final noodle dish was topped with the fragrant fish meat. Quite a bit of work for a humble bowl of noodles. But revered by those who had a chance to taste it.
However...for those of us at home with way more limited resources, we're gotta cut some corners here and there, amirite? The major cut corner that we're going to take advantage of this time is the nowadays existence of the amazing derivation of dried flounder fish: dried flounder fish powder!! Dried flounder fish powder 大地魚粉 is actually the thing that inspired us to make this noodle dish in the first place. This is basically the whole flounder fish, salted and then dried and then powdered for your easy and convenient use. Absolutely fabulous, just like umami in a bottle!
The secret tip to using dried flounder fish powder is to roast the powder before use to get the most out of the flavor. We had had our powder for a long time and, honestly, it was a bit flat. But a careful pan fry over low heat and the dried flounder powder was most deliciously umami-ish and ready to top our Fab Flounder Fish Soup Noodles 甫魚麵.
Look for dried flounder powder 大地魚粉 in asian speciality grocer markets or online here. It might be a wee bit of hard to find but omgosh it's so worth it! Remember it might come under the name of dried sole fish powder or dried plaice fish powder.
Or if you can't find the powder you could just get a whole dried flounder fish, pan fry til roasty and fragrant, then powder it yourself. Look for whole dried flounder fish 大地魚 at Chinese dried seafood shops like the ones along Dried Seafood Street in Sheung Wan.
Now for the second main ingredient, noodles! For this noodle dish we will use 'yee mein noodles 伊麵', also sometimes known as 'yi mein' or 'longevity noodles'. These Chinese noodles are made from an egg enriched noodles that are deep fried. Frying creates chewy and spongy noodles that soak up sauce. This is perfect for this dish as we want noodles that will soak in all the goodness of the stock.
Yee mein 伊麵 is sold prepacked in asian grocery stores, similar to instant noodles, and at your local wet market. Look for the distinctive round patty shape.
The last ingredient needed for this noodle dish is stock. Which if you're a super duper organised cook you're probably making amazing stock at home. Or if you're lazy and unorganised like us you're gonna buy your stock pre-made. But shoot, the Chinese soup stock available nowadays is pretty goshdarnit amazing! We use a packaged Chinese chicken and jinhua ham stock that is really very good. And so convenient!
So, three simple ingredients to make one exquisite bowl of noodles. Fish Powder. Noodles. Stock. Smoosh together and you've got the noodle bowl of noodle bowls! We recommend to serve this noodle in small bowls for a perfectly small and exquisite serving of yummilicious-ness.
Sadly this traditional noodle dish has kinda disappeared from the culinary scene in HK. So treat yourself and make this simple but truly fabulous noodle dish at home. A noodle dish to die for, truly!
Flounder Fish Soup Noodles
甫魚麵
(makes 4 small bowls) Prep time: 1 min Cook time: 14 mins
Ingredients:
- 2 patties yee mein noodles 伊麵
- 6 cups soup stock
- 8 tsps dried flounder fish powder 大地魚粉
Directions:
Pan fry the dried flounder fish powder over low heat, no oil, stirring constantly, until fragrant.
Add soup stock to a medium sized pot. When soup is boiling add the noodles and simmer for 3-5 mins or until soft.
Portion out cooked noodles equally into 4 small bowls*. The bowls used normally to serve rice is the perfect size. Ladle soup into each bowl. Finish off by adding 2 tsps flounder fish powder to top each bowl. Serve hot and exquisite. Enjoy!
*Tip: If you want bigger noodle servings that's fine just double all the amounts and serve in regular sized noodle bowls.
Nom Nom Noodles at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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