Chinese Style Noodles with Ground Lamb and Bok Choy

Chinese Style Noodles with Ground Lamb and Bok Choy is a mouthful of simple, yet complex flavor. Ready and on the table in less than 30 minutes.

The making of Chinese Style Noodle with Ground Lamb and Bok Choy

This recipe for Chinese Style Noodles with Ground Lamb and Bok Choy is one I found on sfgate.com about a year ago.  It intrigued me because it uses ground lamb and it was Chinese.

I'd never really thought of lamb as being a part of Chinese cuisine, but apparently, it’s very popular in both Northern and Southern China where oxen were forbidden to be slaughtered since they were the workhorses of the farming community. Lamb and mutton, not so much.

What you need to make Chinese Style Noodles with Ground Lamb and Bok Choy

• ½ pound ground lamb or other ground meat
• Bok Choy - Also known as Chinese Cabbage. Found in most supermarkets. Best if it's baby bok choy, but larger stalks will also work.
• Wide pasta such as tagliatelle or fettuccine. To keep it gluten-free, wide rice noodles will work.
• Saki or Chinese Rice Wine.
• Garlic, fresh ginger, and green onions - the trinity of Chinese Cooking.
• Garlic chili sauce, for heat. Garlic chili sauce is available in most all grocery stores in the Asian food section.
• Soy Sauce - I always use low-sodium naturally fermented soy sauce.
• Toasted Sesame Oil - also found in the Asian section of your supermarket. If you don't use this often, it's best kept in the refrigerator as it turns rancid quickly.
• Neutral oil - I like grapeseed oil.
• Special Equipment - A deep heavy skillet or wok.

You may ask...

Do I need to use lamb?

While this can be made with another ground meat, turkey, pork, or beef, I think the lamb gives it a nice earthy flavor that you would lose if you substitute another ground meat.

But, one of the things I love about the flavors of this recipe is, putting half of the marinade INTO the meat. Flavoring it from the inside with the same great flavor as the sauce.

Although the sauce is a bit more complex.

What is Bok Choy?

Bok Choy is a type of Chinese cabbage. While it doesn't grow into a head as you might expect of cabbage, it looks more like celery, with a rather firm bottom and a leafy top. It has a very mild, slightly cabbagy flavor.

If you can't find baby bok choy and ned to use the larger ones, I generally remove the larger outside leaves to make this recipe, keeping the tender inside to quickly grill as a side to another meal.

The inside core is easily cut into halves, brush a little sesame seed oil on the leaves, and then grill, either on the BBQ or a grill pan. Lovely smoky flavors.

With this recipe, as I said, I use the outside leaves, separating the white bottoms from the leafy top. Cook the bottoms first, adding the delicate leaves at the last moment to retain their color and to keep them from getting mushy.

Need it to be Gluten-Free? I got you covered!

For this recipe, I use fettuccine pasta, but you could use wide rice noodles, such as Asjantaboonn (wide noodle) or Pad Thai, medium noodle) to keep this gluten-free.

Of course, you would need to use a gluten-free soy sauce. 

One-pot cooking, done in about 30 minutes, including boiling the water for the noodles.  How easy is that?

Wine Recommendation for Chinese Style Noodles with Ground Lamb and Bok Choy

If you would like to serve a wine with this,  I recommend a Pinot Noir.  Look for, or ask your wine merchant to recommend one that is a little earthy, it will complement the earthiness of the lamb. Another good wine choice would be a Cab Franc most commonly known as a blending grape, but yummy on its own as well.

 Need to use up that left-over ground lamb? Try these delish Sirloin Beef and Lamb Burgers with Feta and Cilantro Mint Sauce