Longevity Noodles -- a Lunar New Year #recipe by @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: The Lunar New Year, Leslie? It's August 1! Not in my book. In the newest Spice Shop Mystery, Between a Wok and a Dead Place, it's late January and we're celebrating the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Rabbit. 

Longevity Noodles are a traditional dish served at the New Year in Chinese cuisine, the long noodles symbolizing the wish for good luck and a long life. Many Lunar New Year favorites are symbolic, including the tasty sesame and red bean balls, and spring rolls, stacked to look like bars of gold. 

This is a surprisingly easy dish, although you may need to visit an Asian grocery for some of the ingredients. Such interesting places, filled with ingredients unfamiliar to many of us. One reason I love cooking is that it gives us the opportunity to travel to unfamiliar places, via fork---or chopstick---and plate!

Happy eating, and may these noodles bring you good fortune, no matter what time of year you make them! 

Longevity Noodles 

In Chinese tradition, the extra-long noodles served at the New Year symbolize our hopes for good luck and a long life. They can be hard to find; lo mein or egg noodles are an easy substitute. Stir-fry shrimp or chicken with sesame oil and a little soy sauce to add protein, if you’d like, or serve with stir-fried baby bok choy or snow peas for a reminder of all things fresh and green.

 And of course, Pepper believes that any meal you enjoy with people you love is a sure sign that good luck has already found you!

For the sauce:

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 ½ teaspoons freshly grated or jarred ginger

2 teaspoons white pepper or finely ground black pepper

red pepper flakes or chili pepper sauce, to taste (optional, for those who like a bite)

For the noodles:

2 tablespoons each sesame and vegetable oil

4 - 6 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced (or crimini, if you can’t find shiitake)

1 - 3 ounces dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated (package sizes vary)

4 - 6 green onions, sliced, white and greens parts separated

5 cloves garlic, minced

10 - 12 ounces longevity noodles or lo mein (egg) noodles (package sizes vary)

In a small bowl, whisk together the sauce ingredients. Set aside. 

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Boil the noodles for 3 minutes. Drain. (No picture)

Return the pot to the stove and heat the sesame and vegetable oil over medium-low. Add the mushrooms and saute 3-4 minutes, stirring to prevent sticking. Add the garlic and the whites of the onions. Saute until the garlic is golden and the onions have begun to soften, another 3-4 minutes.

Add the drained noodles and onion greens. Stir to combine and cook an additional minute. Pour the sauce over the noodles and stir gently, so the sauce coats the noodles without breaking them.

Slide the noodles into your serving bowl.

Serves 4 as a main dish, 8 as a side dish.

BETWEEN A WOK AND A DEAD PLACE: A Spice Shop Mystery (July 2023, Seventh St. Books)

From the cover: 

It's the Lunar New Year, and fortunes are about to change. 

 

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city's Chinatown–International District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit?

 

But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man's body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel's basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up—and why are the owners so reluctant to talk? 

 

With each new discovery, Pepper find herself asking new questions and facing more brick walls. 

 

Then questions arise about Roxanne and her relationship to Pepper's boyfriend Nate, away fishing in Alaska. Between her worries and her struggle to hire staff at the Spice Shop, Pepper has her hands and her heart full. Still, she can't resist the lure of the Gold Rush and its tangled history of secrets and lies stretching back nearly a century. 

 

But the killer is on her tail, driven by hidden demons and desires. As Pepper begins to expose the long-concealed truth, a bigger question emerges: Can she uncover the secrets of the Gold Rush Hotel without being pushed from the wok into the fire?

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest book is Between a Wok and a Dead Place, the 7th Spice Shop mystery.  

A past president of Sisters in Crime and national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

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