Another of my mom’s recipes. The noodles are quick to make, but the broth takes a while to simmer.

Noodles:

Mix some flour (~2 cups) and water (~0.5 cup) in a pot or mixing bowl. This isn’t exact, so start with the flour and add water in small amounts until you get a good dry dough–this is less water than you might think, so make sure to really mix and knead the dough with your hands before adding the next batch of water.

Once you have a ball of dough barely sticking together, put it on a flat, floured surface and start kneading it, maybe about 10 minutes or until it gets too tough. Leave the dough in a ball, covered with a moist paper towel, to rest for 30 minutes.

When the dough has rested and softened, roll it out into a thin (2-5mm thick) round sheet with a rolling pin. Fold this sheet onto itself 4-5 times, and cut into noodles. Either thin (2-3mm) or wide noodles (5-10mm) are good.

To store, sprinkle the noodles generously with flour and freeze in a bag. Frozen or fresh noodles can be cooked by boiling in water for 5-10 min, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Broth:

Get some stewing cuts of meat. I used pork neck bone pieces, but beef bones, chuck steak, lamb leg, or any fatty pieces of robust red meat can traditionally be used for this. Quickly boil a few pieces of meat in a pot until the water gets foamy.

Strain the meat by pouring the water and meat into a colander, rinse the foam off, and return the pieces of meat to the empty pot.

Throw in a small carrot, a stalk of celery, 1/4-1/2 of an onion, 5-10 Szechuan peppercorns, a star anise seed, a bay leaf, and cover with water. Simmer for an hour or longer. At the end add salt and/or soy sauce to taste.

Combined:

Half-fill a bowl with freshly cooked noodles. Throw some chopped cilantro and scallions on, and a dash of chili oil, sesame oil, and/or sesame seeds. Ladle broth to cover noodles and herbs, throw on a piece of meat if you want. Eat.