Birthday Mee Sua (Longevity Noodles)

Update (19 Aug 2014): First posted in Aug 2009, now updated with new photos and improved recipe.

It’s the SO birthday tomorrow, and last weekend I cooked him this bowl of birthday longevity noodles (aka long life noodles, or 长寿面, “Chang Shou Mian”) in advance. For the soup base, I used my favourite chicken soup recipe from Teczcape. My family loves the chicken soup as it tastes homely and boosts immunity (with shiitake mushrooms, garlic, onion and ginger).

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I served the chicken soup with mee sua, baby abalones (birthday treat) and hard-boiled quail eggs.

Birthday Mee Sua (Longevity Noodles) Recipe

Longevity noodles are eaten by Chinese on birthdays and special occasions such as Ren Ri 人 日 (7th day of the Lunar New Year, commonly known as “everyman’s birthday”). The long strands of noodles symbolize a long life. Therefore, when eating the noodles, one tries not to break the noodles using the chopsticks or teeth, but instead chew on the noodles when they are inside the mouth. Quite a challenging task if you’d asked me ;) Instead of mee sua, you can use other long noodles such as bee hoon, udon, soba, yee mien and even spaghetti. The noodles can be dry (stir-fried) as well. Sometimes the eggs are dyed in red food colouring as red symbolises auspiciousness. As for the soup broth, anything goes – you can use any type of soup stock, including instant ones.

Birthday Mee Sua (Longevity Noodles) Recipe

Birthday Mee Sua (Longevity Noodles) Recipe

Chinese love to eat these noodles during birthdays and auspicious occasions. Eat the noodles immediately upon serving, as the mee sua will soak up the soup quickly.

Ingredients:

  • 2 bundles of mee suah (flour vermicelli; or any other long noodles)
  • sesame oil to taste
  • 4 baby abalone from the canned; drained
  • hard-boiled chicken or quail eggs*
  • spring onions thinly sliced; for garnishing

* To cook hard boiled chicken eggs, place eggs in saucepan of cold water (enough water to cover eggs). Bring to a boil for about 2 minutes, turn off the stove and cover with lid for 10 minutes. For quail eggs, cover eggs with sufficient water and boil for 5 minutes. Rinse cooked eggs with cold water before peeling.

(A) Chicken Soup

  • 2 large chicken drumsticks blanched in boiling water for 5 minutes, rinsed
  • chicken bones blanched in boiling water for 5 minutes, rinsed
  • 1.2 litres water
  • 1 medium onion roughly sliced
  • 4 garlic cloves slightly bruised
  • 100 grams fresh shiitake mushrooms caps only
  • 1/2 tbsp wolfberries (gojiberry) soaked in a bowl of water to rehydrate until plump
  • salt to taste

Directions:

Chicken Soup

  1. In a soup pot, add (A) except wolfberries and salt. Simmer for about 1 hour, or until chicken is tender. Add drained wolfberries during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Season to taste with salt.

Birthday mee sua bowl

  1. Cook mee sua in a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds, separating the strands with chopsticks.
  2. Transfer the cooked mee sua to two serving bowls. Coat the mee sua with some sesame oil.
  3. When ready to serve, reheat chicken soup and add the baby abalones to warm through for a few minutes (do not overcook).
  4. Top each bowl of mee sua with one chicken drumstick, baby abalone, mushrooms, hard boiled eggs and baby abalone. Ladle hot chicken stock over, garnish with spring onions and serve immediately.