Peking Meat Sauce over Noodles

Recipe from Lawrence C.C. Chu



What could be more versatile than an all-purpose tasty meat sauce? Use it just like spaghetti sauce!

Yields:

8 servings

Time Required:

Ingredients:




Seasonings


Preparation:

Remove core from cucumber and cut into julienne strips. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Prepare noodles following recipe below, at bottom. Soak mushrooms in warm water for 20 mins.; remove, drain, and mince.

To stir-firy, heat wok (or wide frying pan) over high heat for 1 min., until hot. Add oil, and swirl pan to coat sides. When hot, add pork, stirring to separate. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add mushrooms, bamboo shoots, bean cake, and SEASONINGS. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 2 mins.; then thicken with 2 Tbsp. (30 mL) cornstarch paste, until a spaghetti sauce consistency is reached. Stir in green onion and sesame oil.

Meanwhile, reheat noodles in enough boiling water to cover for about 1 min.; drain and divide into 8 individual serving bowls.

To serve, divide cucumbers and arrange over noodles on one side of each bowl. Spoon sauce over noodles on the other side.



Rich Chicken Broth

A good, rich-tasting chicken broth is essential to Chinese cooking, so, in my restaurant, I make no exceptions. I always use 4-5 lb. (1.8-2.3 kg.) chickens, because I'm preparing food in such volume, but you can use a regular broiler-fryer, if you prefer. I firmly believe a good broth needs no additives. So, why not take a little time (and not much effort), and prepare this chicken broth?

Yields:

8 servings

Time Required:

Ingredients:

Preparation:

To par-boil, place chicken (or bones) in an 8-qt. (7.5 L) stockpot. Cover with boiling water, and cook for 5 mins., to get rid of the scum. Pour chicken into a colander, rinse under cold water, and return chicken to pot.

To cook, add water and vegetables. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer uncovered for about 1 hrs. Occasionally skim surface as needed. Remove from head and cool, then strain well before using.

Author's Notes

As I mentioned, this recipe produces a rich broth that is the basic stock for many of my other soups. If you prefer not to make it, or you don't have the time, always use chicken bouillon (cubes)3 in water, rather than the less flavourful, canned chicken broth.

Save your chicken bones. You can use them to make broth, instead of a whole chicken.

Since the vegetables are added only for flavour, use tips and ends of onions and knobs of ginger root. I mention this since I was once told by a student that she couldn't find "knobs" of ginger at her market.

If you make broth several hours ahead of serving time, let it cool with the bones still inside. If made several days in advance, try freezing it in ice cube trays; when frozen, store cubes in a sealed freezer bag (1 ice cube equals ¼ to ⅓ cup broth).



Fresh Noodles & Wrappers

Here's an all-purpose noodle recipe that can easily be adapted to making fresh egg roll and won-ton wrappers, too.

Makes: 6-8 servings Cooking time: 15 mins.

Yields:

6-8 servings

Time Required:

Ingredients:



Needed: 1 cloth handkerchief (to wrap around corn starch)

Mound flour in a large mixing bowl or on a work surface. Make a deep well in the centre, and pour in egg, water, and salt. Using a chopstick or fork, mix ingredients well, and then knead dough into a stiff ball. Cover with a damp cloth, and let stand for 10 mins.

Meanwhile, spoon corn starch into the centre of the handkerchief, Holding all 4 corners, shake corn starch down into a "bag" and tie securely with string. Set aside.

To shape, knead dough by hand for 4-5 mins., dusting the bread and dough with corn starch bag to prevent sticking. Using a rolling pin, roll dough out into a rectangle about ⅛" (3 mm) thick.

Roll up rectangle evenly onto the rolling pin, pressing down firmly and evenly, to further stretch the dough. Unroll the dough, dust with corn starch on both sides, and roll up on rolling pin again. (Change the position, so that all the dough remains about the same thickness.) Repeat this procedure, until the dough is 1⁄16" (1.5 mm) thick all over.

To cut, unroll the dough for the last time, but unfolding it in such a way that pleats are created. The pleats should be about 2" (5 cm) wide. Using a sharp cleaver or knife, slice straight across the folds, making strips 1⁄16" (1.5 mm) wide. Cut all the way through, and cut the entire length of the dough. Carefully lift up the top layer (pleat), of noodles, and unfold.

To cook, bring 2 quarts (1.9 L) water to a boil in a large pot. Add noodles, stirring to separate, and return to a boil. Pour in cold water, then bring to a boil again. Remove, and pour noodles through a colander; rinse under cold water, and drain well. Mix with oil, to serve.

Variation: Egg Roll Wrappers and Won-Ton Wrappers. Follow the same procedure in making noodles, and roll out as directed, until a thickness of 1⁄16" (1.5 mm) is reached. Using a ruler and a sharp cleaver or knife, cut dough into 7" (18 cm) squares for egg roll wrappers, or 3 ½" (8.9 cm) squares for won-ton wrappers. Dust with corn starch, and then stack them; wrap in plastic until ready to use.


1 Quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, and fl. oz. are as defined in US Customary Units, not to be confused with differing British imperial, "legal", "coffee", Commonwealth of Nations, Canadian, Latin American, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch definitions — further proof that everyone needs the metric system.

2 I bought ground meat for decades before realising how quick and easy it is to grind (deboned) meat in a food processor, producing better, fresher, and cheaper food.

3 Minced is better. Crushing vegetables breaks all of the constituent cellulose-rich cells' walls and has unfortunate consequences to the food's tastes, particularly in the case of garlic, the crushed paste of which easily becomes bitter, lacking flavour nuance, and sometimes picking up a metallic aftertaste.

So, think of this as your motivation to get a nice, really sharp 8" (20 cm) chef's knife for mincing (producing 1⁄16" = 1.5 mm cuts), and a good cutting board.

4 White pepper is the same Piper nigrum berry seed as is sold as black pepper, except left to fully ripen, fermented in water, and the black outer coat removed. Accordingly, it has a milder flavour and lighter colour. Otherwise, one is a natural substitute for the other.

5 For easy bouillon, consider Summit Hill Foods's "Better Than Bouillon Base" paste, dissolved in hot tap water. It's fairly high quality, available in large 8 oz. (227 g) jars, and (the main point) a heck of a lot better than any bouillon cubes. Flavours: roasted chicken, roasted beef, turkey, ham, and vegetable.

6 Cornstarch paste is a thin paste made from equal parts of cold water and corn starch. It is essential in many Chinese dishes (but be careful not to over-thicken). Stir just before using. Store covered in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.

7 "Corn starch" is powdered starch processed from the New World grain maize (from Spanish, orig. from Nahuatl), which grain the USA/Canada call "corn", unlike the rest of the English-speaking world, which reserves "corn" to mean cereal grains generically. This starch product, needed here in its customary role as a thickening agent, is called "corn starch" in the US/Canada, but "cornflour" in the UK and most other anglophone lands — not to be confused with whole maize grain: That product — not a thickening agent — is called "polenta", "corn meal", or "corn flour" in the US/Canada, depending on how finely milled, and called "maize flour" in the UK and most other places. Australians should beware that their "cornflour" is starch extracted from wheat kernel, sometimes more-helpfully labelled as "wheaten cornflour". As if that weren't confusing enough, the maize-based thickener may be labelled (in Australia) either as "corn flour" or as "corn starch", so beware. Further, the maize flour product, there, is labelled as "cornmeal".

Note that whole-maize grain is traditionally, in Meso-American cultures of origin, wisely soaked in alkaline solution ("nixtamalised") to increase bioavailability and thereby prevent niacin deficiency (pellagra), among other important benefits, yielding "masa" (lit. dough) aka "masa de maíz" (lit. maize dough), also available in dried & ground form as "masa harina" (lit. dough flour) aka "harina de maíz" (lit. maize flour), and in its unground form, hominy. As further complication, Americans distinguish "corn flour", meaning prepared from maize endosperm only, from "maize flour" for use of whole maize — the former, neutral-flavoured; the latter, much more nutritious.

Origin of the naming mess: Originally, North America shared with Mother England the language's original meaning of "corn" to mean cereal grains generically (from Old English "corn" meaning single seed of any cereal plant, orig. from Proto-Germanic "kurnam" meaning small seed). The colonists got the gift of maize from native peoples, therefore at first calling it "Indian corn". Later, in the USA and Canada, "Indian corn" got worn down to just "corn", while the original meaning of "corn" was lost, locally. "Maize" is thus now the least-ambiguous term in international contexts, though many Americans either don't know that word or reserve it for variants from Latin-American (and Spanish) cooking.

Taken from: Lawrence C.C. Chu's classic cookbook Chef Chu's Distinctive Cuisine Of China, p. 128. published 1980 by Harper and Row, which can be checked out in scanned format at Internet Archive. Thank you! (Chu's the chef / restaurateur of beloved local restaurant Chef Chu's, in Los Altos, California.)

Collected and re-published at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/recipes/peking-meat-sauce-over-noodles.html by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Oct. 4, 2026. Individual recipes are free from copyright. Share and enjoy!

(If I have any copyright title in my own very minor contributions to this page — not my intention — they were created in 2026 by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. I have thereby waived all copyright, compilation copyright, and related or neighbouring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States of America.)