Foochow Chicken Mien Xien (Sou Mien)

Mien Xien or Xien Mien (Suo Mein in Foochow) are very thin white noodles. Mien Xien or Mee Sua (in Hokkien) cooked with Chicken Soup is a signature foochow dish. Almost every foochow grew up on this.

Chicken Soup Mee Sua (Sou Mein) make their appearances in almost all occasions big & small. And I really mean ALL ocassions BIG & SMALL ~ from childbirths and confinements, 1-year-old to 99-year old birthdays, and on weddings. On my wedding, I was fed this from the time i did my makeup up to my in laws' house. Even the groom & their 'brothers' were not spared from this. Greg & his 'brothers' were stuffed with this when they came to pick me up as the bride.

Sou Mien is also breakfast, lunch or dinner, and whenever I am too lazy to cook. I'm just glad it's one of Greg's favourite dish and he rarely gets tired of it. This is how you do it:

a) Chicken Soup

1.2 to 1.5 kg of free range chicken/chai yuan chicken, washed and cut to small pcs
8 pcs of dried shitake mushrooms (soaked in room temperature water till soft)
small handful of thornberries (goa zi)
10 pcs of red dates (hung zhoa)
4-5 slices of ginger
2tbsp of sesame oil
6-8 cups of water
1/2 cup of foochow red wine (special wine of sourish taste, fermentation of red rice and glutinous rice)

1)Heat wok with sesame oil. Add ginger and fry till fragrant. With high heat, add mushrooms and then chicken and fry, stirring for a 2-3 min. Add foochow red wine (get the best quality you can grab hold of. Usually homemade). Cover and boil for 5 min or so.

2) Boil the water in a big pot, water should come approx only half of pot as we are adding chicken mixture to it. Add red dates and thornberries and continue boiling.


3) Add chicken mixture. Let it boil. Once boiling turn the fire down to small and let it simmer for at least one hour for flavour to come out.

b) The Sou Mien

About 30-40 gm per person. Good quality sou mien is characterised by lightness and thinness. Thick ones are usually not as good tasting. Mee sua must be cut into bunches of 15-20 cm long and twisted into circles, then sun dried well for at least a full day and kept in tupperware. Good quality sou mien are separated upon cooking. Lesser quality ones tend to stick into one big lump.


Boil a small pot water and add sou mien. Let the noodle boil for a min or so or water boils until foamy. Strain and dish it out and place in individual bowls. Pour hot boiling chicken soup over noodles. Give lots of soup. Arrange chicken pcs and mushrooms on top. Serve with your favourite soy sauce and more red wine. This dish smells so good especially if the red wine is of good quality.

This dish has a very significant meaning to me. Not only it is Mum's favourite, my great grandma (Tui Ma) cooked this so well. As a child bride who came from China and having a 3-inch feet lady as a mother-in-law, Tui Ma was a lady who had gone through immense hardship. Yet, she was such a loving, giving and gritty lady. She was someone who never complained about who had not done enough for her, but instead she worried about if she had done enough for all her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

She readily extended her love and generousity to all those around her including her neighbours and friends. Most importantly, she was the first person in the family to accept Christ and thus making us the fourth generation, and including my cousin Chris' children, the fifth generation of Christian in this land. Such blessed gift she had given us!

I had the pleasure and honour of knowing her up to about 7 years old. But I still remember the last bowl of foochow suo mein she had cooked for me. We arrived in Sibu to visit her and in a way, saying our farewells. She got out of her sickbed and cooked the bowl because she knew I loved it. She left us in 1982 after fighting colon cancer. But she is still the most loved and well respected person in all our hearts. Such a blessing she was to all who knew her!

Nee is On the Go Again!

Nee is finally feeling better today after a week's bout of flu. You should have seen her. She was really knocked out then.

Today she came up to me and told me that she wanted to make a few things.

I said what? You shouldn't be doing anything. Take the whole day off. Relax. Watch your TVB.

I should have known better. I should have known she would be up to something.

You have to know something about foochow women. They can cook 24 hours a day and they delight in it. It's not something we can ever understand.

Today a female friend of ours mentioned that foochow women are known to be 'gritty'. They are tough. My father concurs. He said he's seen foochow women jump out of bed straight out of confinement to feed the ducks, feed the chicken, kill a duck, cook a duck, feed the children, and plant veges behind the house, and cook dinner. It's almost like a one woman show.

If Nee was a traffic light, there would be no red light on her. So just now, she held up a glass and grinned at me:

It's a freakin' soya bean drink! I don't know how she squeezed that out of those beans!

And it tasted like the real thing. Fresh and without any of that raw 'green' aftertaste.

And that wasn't all. She went into the kitchen and came out with this:

Freshly Fried Scrunchy Munchy Crispy Wispy You Cha Koey!

My breakfast will be heavenly tomorrow!

Homemade Taiwan Style Noodles

Noodles represents are one of main staple in Chinese food, second to rice and in some places especially the northern part of China it is eaten more than rice. Essentially there are 3 categories of noodles ~ wheat ones (mien), rice flour ones (hor fun, koay teow, mee fun thin and thick) and mung bean starch (vermicelli). The wheat ones have many varieties and the difference lies mainly in the ratio of flour, water and/or eggs, and the thickness and treatment. Egg noodles are basically wheat and egg to make noodles like yee mien. There are those with egg/s and water added to flour such as oil noodle (you mien), kolo mee, cantonese lo mien, mee pok, taiwan noodle, ban mien, heng hua pa mee. There are also noodle made with just flour salt and water which is how some xien mien are made. La Mien and knife shaved ones of course are totally different ball games. There are just too many varieties.

Freshly made Taiwan noodle

Many would just buy ready made noodles from stores but unless you know the person making them, you dont know really know what goes into them. Many would used alkaline water to give noodles a certain crunchiness (that is why bought noodles sometimes has a funny smell) and also just plain egg whites with lots of water. Egg whites are bought from people what wants to throw them away like bakers making layer cakes.

To be honest, there is not that many real hand made noodles as some eateries claim to made, most have machines to help. Unless you see the Ta Mien See Fu at work with his long bamboo stick hang onto a ring screwed to the wall and he literally sits and jumps on the bamboo stick to press his dough. Of course La mien (hand pulled noodles) is hand made and so are some ban mien.

My little pasta maker (Pui Nam Cheong in India street charge me RM100 and by the time i got to the end of the street, it only costs RM60 ~ Totally ripped off)

Making your own noodles is really not very difficult but the results is healthy fresh yummy noodles. But you should invest in a little pasta maker which cost like RM60 to RM80. One of our favourites at home is Taiwan style noodle. This type of noodles is very smooth in texture, has a nice bite yet it is on the softer side.

Freshly cooked noodle

300g of flour
(high protein if you like it more hard and chewy; key or plain protein if you like it softer)
2 no of big eggs
80-100gm of water (please adjust according to the flour you use)
1 tsp of salt

1) Mix all ingredients together with hand or mixer and knead (like washing clothes) into dough. Add more flour if too wet.

2) Divide the dough into 2 portions and roll it out into a square, sprinkle some flour on both side and run it through the noodle maker to make sheets (use the sheet making part), starting from largest (No 1 for my noodle maker) to No 3 or No 4. (I usually stop at 3 because I like my noodles thicker). With each no, run it through twice. Sprinkle some flour each time you change no. If sheets get too long, cut into ½ or 1/4 before running through next no. The sheets will look shiny after a few runs.

3) Cut sheets into strips using the noodle maker (the noodle making part) or by hand. Sprinkle each portions of noodles with flour to prevent sticking together. Remember this dough is softer.

4) Fold up the strips nicely waiting to be cooked. Preferrably cook immediately upon making. This noodle is the nicest and freshest this way.

5) Boil a pot of water, add some oil, loosen the noodles and cook til the strands start floating up. Take it out and wash with water to get rid of flour, dunk in back into hot water again for like 2-3 sec.
Can be used for Taiwan beef noodles, Taiwan pork rib noodles, Ma Lak Mien, Hot and Sour Noodles.