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Crispy duck is always a big favourite in any Chinese meal, and here we're making an easy version that you can prepare in advance then reheat when you're ready to serve. You can enjoy the shredded duck wrapped up in Chinese pancakes, or small tortillas or wraps work equally well - the dough used to make Chinese pancakes is very similar to the unleavened wheat-flour tortilla dough used in Mexico!
Book: How to Be a Noodle Legend
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 2 hours
Aromatic Crispy Duck
Downloadable Recipe
This dish, a relatively recent creation known as Big Plate Chicken (Da Pan Ji) is named after the large platter it’s normally served on. It's a delicious combination of chicken cooked with peppers, onions and a spicy sauce that’s now hugely popular across China and is usually served on a bed of wide hand-pulled noodles, but thick pasta shapes like pappardelle or tagliatelle are a very good substitute.
Prep: 25 mins
Cook: 45 mins
Big Plate Chicken
The quirky name of this dish comes from its appearance where the little bits of mince (the ants) look like they're climbing a tree branch (the vermicelli noodles). It's easy to make and the rich heat from the LA JIAO BLEND and MA LA BLEND gives a lovely depth of flavour, with a seriously spicy kick!
Prep: 20 mins
Cook: 30 mins
Ants Climbing a Tree Noodles
Glossy red pieces of char siu pork hanging in the window of a barbeque restaurant are one of the iconic sights of Chinatowns around the world, and the delicious sweet, sticky marinade makes this one of the all-time favourite dishes of Chinese cuisine. The meat can be thinly sliced and served hot with rice, or even cold as a filling for steamed buns or sandwiches!
Char Siu Pork
This is a very simple stir-fry dish, but the way that aubergines soak up the flavours they're cooked with makes it a much more delicious combination than it first appears! It goes well with all sorts of different Noodle Legend main courses, and can even be a veggie main course in its own right.
Cook: 50 mins
Aubergine with Garlic & Ginger
Sweet and sour is probably the most popular dish on a classic Chinese restaurant menu, and now you can make an easy Noodle Legend version at home! This simple recipe has all the classic sweet and sour flavours, but also a bit of extra fragrance from our BADIAN BLEND and a tiny touch of heat from the LA JIAO BLEND.
Cook: 20 mins
Sweet & Sour
Chow mein translates simply as 'fried noodles' - chow (or chao) meaning stir-fried, and mein (or mian) meaning noodles. It's a very simple dish that you can customise in all sorts of different ways by adding different meats, more vegetables, extra chilli, some beaten egg or by changing the type of noodles you use, but this is the basic recipe to start from!
Chow Mein
These hand-pulled noodles are named after the sound they make as thick lengths of dough are stretched and 'bang-banged' on the work surface by highly skilled noodle chefs in the ancient city of Xian, northern China. They're incredibly satisfying to make, and the moreish, chewy texture with the simple and delicious seasoning of sizzling hot oil poured over garlic and dried chilli makes them equally satisfying to eat!
Cook: 40 mins
Biang Biang Noodles
The secret to ultra-tender beef is to marinate with bicarbonate of soda and cornflour, which softens the fibres and helps to retain all of the delicious juices. This dish is best made with salted black bean paste (sometimes labelled as black bean garlic sauce) rather than a black bean cooking or stir-fry sauce, but if that's all you can find, don't worry - substitution instructions below!
Cook: 1 hour 30 mins
Beef in Black Bean Sauce
Marinating the beef with bicarbonate of soda and cornflour is a Chinese 'secret' technique that has an amazing tenderising effect, giving a real melt-in-the-mouth texture. The other important factor with this recipe is to keep the heat high so everything starts to catch and char slightly - on a commercial wok burner this smoky flavour is known as 'wok hei' or 'breath of the wok', but you can also get pretty good results at home!
Cook: 1 hour 10 mins
Beef Chow Fun
These noodles are in fact a Cantonese creation rather than from Singapore, and they're extremely popular in Hong Kong tea houses as well as being a favourite in Chinese takeaways in the UK. They’re a delicious jumble of vermicelli noodles, pork, prawns, peppers, beansprouts and egg all flavoured with spicy Indian curry powder.
Prep: 40 mins
Singapore Noodles
This dish is one of the all-time classic Chinese takeaway main courses, and a regular component of any set meal. The key element is to cut the beef into strips as thin as possible, then fry them twice which sounds like a hassle but makes all the difference to the crispiness of the batter (if you're not keen on deep-frying, this dish also works brilliantly in an air fryer!).
Prep: 30 mins
Crispy Chilli Beef
This homely stew is a typical dish from the north of China where the winters are bitterly cold, so rich meat stews like this are often slow-cooked in clay pots to help get you through the cold weather. Here diced beef is cooked in a dark sauce with plenty of soy, ginger and our BADIAN BLEND which gives a lovely sweet fragrance to this simple dish. Serve with rice, noodles or even mashed potatoes!
Cook: 1 hour 40 mins
Chinese Beef Stew
Crispy golden fried pieces of garlic are a favourite topping in many parts of Asia, and often appear sprinkled on top of noodles, salads or rice dishes. Here we use the garlic-flavoured cooking oil used to make them for a dressing on simply cooked greens, and the resulting crispy garlic on top gives a nice textural and flavour contrast, as well as looking spectacular!
Cook: 10 mins
Broccoli with Garlic
The name of this spectacular chicken salad comes from its unusual preparation method, where you poach the chicken then bash it (making a 'bang bang' sound!) to tenderise the flesh, before shredding into thin fibres. It's a surprisingly effective way to create the most delicious, tender strips of chicken, which are then bathed in a rich and tangy chilli oil dressing.
Prep: 15 mins
Bang Bang Chicken
Salt & pepper in a Chinese restaurant tends to mean a toasted mix of salt with both white and Sichuan peppercorns for heat and a tingly numbing sensation, plus a pinch of five spice powder for extra fragrance. We're making a toasted salt and pepper blend here to season crispy chicken wings, and the moreish spicy coating really lends itself to covering every last bit of tender flesh and crispy skin, and of course licking your fingers clean at the end!
Salt & Pepper Chicken Wings
Gong bao is a dish of succulent chicken stir-fried with peanuts and spring onions in a rich, spicy sauce. The kick of chilli, tingle of Sichuan pepper and gentle sweet-sour sauce form a typical Sichuanese combination of flavours, and it's a great looking dish with a wonderfully complex flavour that belies how easy it is to actually make!
Cook: 25 mins
Gong Bao Chicken
Sweet chilli chicken is a bit of a hybrid, combining Chinese ingredients and cooking methods with a Southeast Asian sweet chilli sauce. The resulting dish is pretty delicious, and the sweetness really helps to mellow out the heat from the chilli, making this a real family favourite!
Sweet Chilli Chicken
Curry sauce is not a Chinese dish at all, but it's a legacy of so many Chinese takeaways being based in chip shops around the UK where the local taste for curry needed to be accommodated! The result is a rich, thick and sweet sauce full of fragrant curry spices with a hint of Chinese flavours like star anise and sesame oil - a delicious combination!
Chinese Curry Sauce
Beef noodle soups are hugely popular in Northern and Western China, and the dark, rich broth is a really clever way to get the maximum flavour and nutrition from a relatively small amount of meat. For this simple version we're making a quick pickled garlic and chilli condiment to spoon over at the table for a fabulous colour and flavour contrast!
Beef Noodle Soup
This is a spicy stir-fry from Sichuan province that celebrates peppers in 3 different formats - fresh peppers and chillies, dried chilli in our LA JIAO BLEND and fragrant Sichuan pepper in our MA LA BLEND. The combination works really well together and you can increase the heat even more if you add a spoonful of Sichuan chilli-bean paste (sometimes labelled as doubanjiang) in place of 1 tbsp soy sauce, but the dish works perfectly well without!
Sichuan Three Pepper Chicken
Salt and pepper chips are a favourite addition to any Chinese takeaway order, and they go really well with a selection of Noodle Legend main courses (or just enjoy a bowl in front of the TV with a dish of sweet and sour sauce to dip them in!). The spicy toasted seasoning with lots of Sichuan pepper and star anise, as well as white pepper and chilli, really lifts the flavour and the fresh onion, garlic and pepper add texture and colour.
Salt & Pepper Chips
Red braising is a classic Chinese style of slow-cooking meat in a sauce flavoured with lots of spices, caramelised sugar and soy. Fattier, tougher cuts tend to work best when cooked in this way, and the result is a beautifully rich combination of deeply savoury and sweet tastes, with meltingly tender pieces of meat. A real treat for any Noodle Legend feast!
Cook: 1 hour 45 mins
Red Braised Pork
Mapo tofu is a Sichuan dish which translates as 'pockmarked Grandmother's tofu' due to the bits of minced meat and seasonings that are mixed with the otherwise smooth texture of the tofu. The classic way to cook it in China is with doubanjiang (chilli-bean paste), but miso is a perfectly acceptable substitute and still adds that crucial savouriness to the rich sauce.
Mapo Tofu