Victor Liong’s Crossing the Bridge Noodles (Guo Qiao Mi Xian)

This is a nice dish to share at home, it’s got quite a romantic story and is based around a rich Yunnanese chicken broth – it gets its name from a scholar’s wife who bought him lunch daily – which was chicken noodle soup, and one spring day the scholar noticed the soup was still piping hot after her trip across the bridge – it was because of a layer of fat that kept the heat in and the soup hot, this nourishing ritual sustained the scholar to eventually make the high courts of the lands and made this dish a legend.

Yunnan – literally named ‘South of the clouds’ is a region of south China that borders Sichuan, Tibet, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. The flavours are fragrant, light and bold. The liberal use of acidity, heat, herbs, fermented and dried fish makes this a vibrant and diverse cuisine style of China.

Method

1. Burn ginger and onion over a naked flame until charred. Place all the aromatic spices in a spice bag.
2. Separate the chicken legs off the chicken and the breasts of the chicken, use the bones, skin and legs for the stock, reserve the breasts.
3. Place all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil, with a small skimmer, skim off scum for the first 10 minutes of the cooking, reduce the heat and simmer for 3 hours.