Dumplings and Noodles: Bao, Gyoza, Biang Biang, Ramen – and Everything in Between

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Otherwise, it just has an air of superiority about it which I, and I am Chinese, personally find offensive. Given the short proving period for the starter, we weren’t sure of the reason behind creating a starter first and then a dough, rather than plunging straight into a yeasted dough (as is the process in other bao recipes we have used).

One of the best things about this dish is that you really can make a lot of food without spending much. Middlehurst has a fantastic knack for making the complicated seem simple, encouraging you to try out recipes you would normally stare at longingly before flicking over to the next page to find something a little simpler to attempt. This is like a handbook for the modern home cook, with over 70 recipes exploring the traditional cooking techniques of our best-loved Asian dishes.The way I like to do it is roll the dough into a ball, and then start flattening it out with the rolling pin.

The first was between Ken Hom and Fuchsia Dunlop on Chinese cuisine and writing for a British audience. Use tongs to serve up the dumplings into bowls, add the noodles and bok choy then ladle over the hot broth. However, if you’re very hungry or you’re serving this up to guests, you could add in some prawn crackers with dips. I think of dumplings as small lumps of dough that are boiled in a broth, like some dim sum dishes I like to eat. Noodle dishes in this chapter include wok-fried noodles with beef and pak choi, breakfast yakisoba, Singapore mei fun rice noodles, Taiwanese fishing dock noodles, zha jiang mian (fried-sauce noodles), cumin lamb biang biang noodles, dan dan noodles, kick-ass tofu skin mala noodles, cold sesame noodles, chilli crab noodles, hangover noodles (charred broccoli soba), yuzu shio ramen, miso clam ramen, ox cheek mala xiao mian, Hong Kong wonton noodle soup, Chongqing noodles, and curry udon (amongst others).To describe our everyday food as “strange textures” also brings a tear to my eye (in any other context, I wouldn’t mind but this is a book about that “strangeness”).

If you want to make your own dumplings from scratch, you could use my delicious recipe for Pork and Ginger Dumplings. Whether you fancy barbecue pork bao, chilli oil wontons, miso ramen, aromatic lamb biang biang or dan dan mian, this mouth-watering collection of super-fresh and versatile recipes is sure to satisfy every craving.

She said we only take cash, and turned her back to us without making any enquiry if we had money, or suggesting where we could get cash. The texture of these homemade noodles, when you slice them into thin strands, reminds me of the slurpy bowls of ramen noodles. The heat is coming from the Thai red curry paste, so make sure you use one that’s not too explosive! There are cute little hand-drawn illustrations too; scattered through the Dumplings and Sides chapters are drawings of bao, dumplings and vegetables and in the Noodles chapter you’ll find colourful squiggly lines of noodles.