Enjoy longevity!

Hi there,

Chicken and mushroom soup is perhaps one of my favorite food in the whole world. I get the worst case of nostalgia everytime I eat it. Most commonly, our family eat the soup with the Chinese long-life noodles. They go so well together. It's like yin and yang, the perfect harmony.

The reason why the noodles are called long-life noodles is, you guessed it, they are so long and the symbolize longevity. The more authentic ones are super thin, sun-dried, and rolled into coils. The Japanese called them "somen" and they eat them with sauce, not soup. Anyways, the long-life noodles are usually eaten during the Chinese New Year and birthdays. It is a tradition that my family and many other chinese have practiced for years and years. Give it a try, it's scrumptious.

p/s: The Chinese long-life noodles can be bought in China Town and the Japanese "somen" can be bought in most stores that sell Asian Foods.

Ingredients:

--2 pieces of ginger, chopped finely. (If you don't have the real ginger root, use the ground ginger powder--a few dashes of it is sufficient).

--3 boneless chicken fillets/2 boneless chicken breasts-->thawed and cut into bite size pieces or bigger.

--2 big bowls of water/350ml

--4 pieces of shitake mushroom, softened in some water

--1 tablespoon of cooking oil

--1 teaspoon of salt or more (some people like the soup saltier)

--1 coil of long-life noodles (per person)

Instructions:

1. Heat the pot over medium-high fire. Pour the oil into the pot and wait for it to heat.

2. When the oil is heated, turn the fire down to medium. Put in the chopped ginger and stir fry the ginger for roughly 30 seconds.

3. Throw the chicken pieces in and stir fry them for 1 minute.

4. Pour in the water and turn the fire up to high.

5. Throw in the shitake mushrooms.

6. Sprinkle in the soup salt and some MSG(just a tiny bit of MSG will make the soup tastier. It's okay to go without the MSG too.)

7. Wait for the soup to boil.

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8. To cook the long-life noodles, boil a pot of plain water.

9. When the water is boiled, throw in a couple coils of long-life noodle.

10. Let the noodles cook for about 30 seconds. Them, use a fork or chopsticks to separate the noodles.

11. When the noodles is soft, it is ready to be served in a large bowl.

12. Pour in the soup, chicken pieces, and mushroom onto the noodles. Serve hot.

Tips:

1. Don't cook the noodles for too long. When the noodles float to the surface of the water, it is basically ready. The longer you cook, the fatter the noodles get.

2. Most people cook the soup with chinese rice wine (it's more authentic). You can pour in a tablespoon or two of the wine while stir-frying the chicken.

3. For most Chinese food, you have to taste it to see if you have gotten the level of saltiness/taste you like.

4. Eat the chicken pieces with Soy Sauce. It always taste good on plain meat.

Happy Cooking!

Sharon