A recipe for homesick laowais — Naomi Head

Adapted from a recipe by Xinyue Pan and inspired by Nina Ming-ya Powles’ Tiny Moons. Words by Naomi Head.

After a surprise return to Scotland in 2020, I spent a lot of time trying to get through reverse culture shock and homesickness for China. Food was a great bridge when settling into life there, so I started using it as a way to maintain a connection with my adopted home and reconnect with Edinburgh. I found a few recipes online but they were a little intimidating or would require an eye-wateringly expensive amount of ingredients, so when I found Kitchen Pan’s recipe for Cong You Ban Mian I was overjoyed. Finally, I’d found an easy dish to ease my cravings.

Sourcing ingredients for Chinese cooking in Scotland can be hard if you don’t know where to look but making this pushed me to go out and explore my local area. I discovered that I live near two well-stocked Asian supermarkets where I can find everything I need for these noodles and more ambitious dishes like braised aubergine or dry fried-green beans.

These noodles can be made with five ingredients you might already have in your cupboard — all you need is instant noodles, granulated sugar, soy sauce, spring onions and vegetable oil — but I was after something closer to the dishes I had in Beijing. Cong You Ban Mian is traditionally a Shanghai dish, but this dish and its variations are popular in dim sum and snack restaurants across China. They are easy and cheap to make and perfect for the days I find myself staring out the kitchen window missing Beijing.

The first time I made and tasted my own Cong You Ban Mian, the sauce transported me back to nights at the neon-clad Jingdingxuan, a multi-storey dim sum palace at Beijing’s Lama Temple, where I often appeared alongside the drunk and hungry masses at 4am ready to indulge in the magic of second dinner.

Second dinner is a special tradition in China, and it’s one I take very seriously. I’ve spent a few evenings (to say the least) chewing on chuan’r, drinking Pearl River beer and slurping on noodles with friends who turned into family thanks to this post-club ritual.

There is nothing more satisfying than ordering a range of steamers filled with dumplings to debrief after another weird night spent in the Japanese driving-range-come-karaoke-bar. Unfortunately, the closest thing I’ve seen to second dinner in Scotland is late-night breakfast rolls at weddings or chips and cheese on knees after another sweaty night out, which is great but not quite the same as spinning a lazy Susan and snatching dumplings in between jokes and unpredictable conversation.

I don’t eat dim sum in the middle of the night any more and second dinners have become scarce, but when I crave a taste of my home from home I throw together these noodles, let scallion oil dribble down my chin, and wipe my face with the back of my hand until I feel grounded again.

These noodles are simple to make, and they are fantastic alone or with sides of steamed and pan-fried dumplings in your own version of second dinner. Cong You Ban Mian is a taste of my home from home here in Scotland and works as either a winter warmer or light summer snack.

The recipe

Prep time: 10 minutes | Cooking time: 10 minutes | Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of spring onions

• 2 nests of egg noodles

• 2 tablespoons of vegetable or sunflower oil

• 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce

• 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce

• 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar

• Salt for seasoning

Serves up to four people (add one noodle nest per extra person)

Method

1. For the noodles, fill a pan with water, add salt to your own taste (I personally go with it tasting like the sea) and bring water to a boil while you prep the spring onions.

2. Peel any sad-looking leaves from the spring onions. Then slice the fresh spring onions in half lengthways and remove the tip.

3. Chop the spring onions into sections half the size of your pinky finger.

4. For the sauce, add two tablespoons of light soy sauce, one tablespoon of dark soy sauce, and a teaspoon of sugar to a bowl and mix well. Set aside for later.

5. Add noodles to the boiling water and cook through for eight minutes.

6. Heat up a frying pan and add two tablespoons of oil to the pan. The oil is hot enough when it starts to streak in the pan.

7. Add the spring onions to the oil and lightly simmer. When the spring onions are bright and green turn up the heat and crisp them in the oil for a couple of minutes.

8. Turn off the heat and add the soy and sugar mix. Mix with the oil and spring onions and let the sugar caramelise the spring onions.

9. Drain the noodles and split them into two bowls.

10. Fold the sauce into the noodles, garnish with spring onions, serve and enjoy.