Taiwanese Style Wintermelon Stir Fry with Glass Noodle

This dish makes me think of my childhood when I was studying in Taiwan and for lunch I needed to find a place to eat in a hurry.  There are a lot of "buffet" places around school called that are all Chinese home cooking dishes.  This is one of dished that I always had to have.  It is cheap and tasty and very easy to eat, especially whenever you feel a bit sick but you still have to go to school.  It is also good either for small children or the elderly since it is easy to digest.

I introduced it to my family later on in my life and they love it. Especially for my son, he can keep eating it, and eating it, and eating it, and eating it...

Glass noodle is good a low glycermic index food.  A low fat food.  You can boil the noodles in any kind of broth and you are ready to eat.  Again, try to get the glass noodles from Taiwan.  You all know how I feel about using ingredients from the correct country of origin.

And of course, like most Asian dishes, it is served with rice.

- Daisy

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This is a dish that my mom serves when she gets nostalgic about her school days in Taiwan.  My grandfather sent her off  to study there when she was just a teenager and knew not a lick of Taiwanese.  She was alone and basically had to fend for herself, which is amazing considering when I was 13, I was too busy crying about how many pimples I had and how tough middle school was.  Now she can speak Thai, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Mandarin and English, not to mention a bit of Korean (I'm not joking).  What can I say?  The woman is amazing.  Way to go, Tiger Grandpa!

- Darin 

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Taiwanese Style Wintermelon Stir Fry With Glass Noodle

Serve 4

139g or 1 cup Ground Pork
933g or 3 cups Chinese Watermelon, peeled and chopped into big chunks
288g Shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 nests of Glass Noodle, soaked in lukewarm water for at least 20 minutes
2 slices of Ginger, finely chopped, divided in half
2 Scallions, finely chopped, divided in half
1 Scallion, sliced
1/2 Shallot, sliced
1 can Low Sodium Chicken Broth, preferably Swanson
1 tsp Sugar
1 + 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Salt
1 tsp Corn Starch
1 tsp Black Pepper
1/4 cup + 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil

For the Shrimp Marinade

1) Combine the shrimp, soy sauce and sugar into bowl.  

2) Chill in the fridge until needed. 

For Ground Pork Marinade

1) Combine ground pork, corn starch, soy sauce and 1 tbsp of water in another bowl.  Stir until incorporated.

2) Heat up the oil in medium high heat in big pan or wok and stir in half of the chopped ginger and half of the chopped scallion.  

3) Add in the marinaded ground pork.  Keep stirring and separating the big chunks of pork until it is a uniform consistency and only still slightly pink.  Transfer to a bowl.

For the Stir Fry

1) In the same pan, heat up 1/4 cup oil and put in the shallot and shrimp.  Stir fry each side for 1 minute. Then transfer them into another bowl but leave all the oil and pan juice (chopsticks recommended). 

2) Add drippings from the pork bowl (only the drippings, not the pork) and the rest of the chopped ginger, chopped scallion and wintermelon.  Keep stirring the wintermelon is translucent.  This should take around 7-8 minutes.  Add more oil if necessary.  

3) Stir in the softened glass noodle and add the chicken broth and salt.  Let it come to a boil.  Adjust to taste.

4) Arrange the stir fried wintermelon and glass noodle on a big plate then top it with the pork and shrimp on top.  Finish with the sliced scallion for decoration.  Enjoy!