Chinese Fish Ball Noodle Soup

Here's a simple recipe for any soup-noodle enthusiasts in the Chicago area. I adapted this recipe from one of my favorite styles of soup noodles: Chiu Chow (ChaoZhou or Teo Chiu). The Chiu Chow province is a seaport near eastern part of Guangdong China and serves up some of the best seafood and of course, soup noodles. I used fish balls and sliced fishcake, but you may also use beef and pork balls. All of those fit nicely in this dish. The people of Chiu Chow usually use thick rice noodles -- the kind used in beef chow fun and thai pad kee mow/pad see eew. And an impt ingredient in giving this dish a Chiu Chow taste is the addition of fried shallots. So good. I don't have a precise recipe because I eyeball everything, so you can use this as a commonground. This is for ONE BOWL of noodles.

(1) Fill your soup bowl with however much soup you need and start boiling that. Start another pot of boiling water to cook the noodles. Rice noodles are pretty much cooked and the reason i boil it is to take out some of the oils found on the noodles. So basically, once the pot of water is boiling, rip apart each noodle block from the strip and cook for 10-15 seconds and add them to your bowl. As a big eater, I usually add 5 noodle blocks. 3-4 should be fine for 'normal' eaters. Do not overcook these, soggy noodles suck.

(2) Once the other pot is boiling, add 1 tablespoon of chicken bouillon (Knorr Chicken Flavoring works too), 2.5-3 tablespoons of fish or squid sauce until desired saltiness, 1/2 a tablespoon of sugar (use sugar to balance out saltiness) and white pepper to taste. The soup should have a fish sauce taste to it, yet has a slightly sweet taste. White pepper should not overwhelm the soup as well. Reduce the heat and add any kind of meatball in there. Cook for another 5 minutes on medium heat.

(3) Heat up some oil in a small pan and once it gets hot, add the fried shallots (available at any asian market for like $2 for a whole jar) and immediately turn off the heat. These will burn easily -- all your doing is heating up the shallots to bring out the flavor. Takes about 3 seconds. And this will bring your soup base to another level.

(4) Add the fishballs and broth into your bowl and top with fried shallots/oil, green onions and cilantro. A good way to eat the fishballs is to combine hoisin sauce and Sriracha Chili Garlic sauce together (1/2 and 1/2) and use it as a dipping sauce. Enjoy.