Hand-pulled Pan Mee

Meal time has been a struggle with Baby V lately although I tried to give her a variety of food. She is no longer interested in feeding herself broccoli "trees", sweet potatoes, or cucumber slices. The list goes on, and worst still, she rejects oats and porridge, no matter what I cook them with, be it fish, chicken or pork. All she does is push out all the food using her tiny tongue after taking one or two spoonfuls. I've tried everything possible to make her more interested in her food: meal times together, offering finger food, offering a spoon that she can play with while I try to feed her, and yet, nothing works. The last time I checked, there isn't sign of her 6th tooth erupting yet so I am a bit lost at what I should do for her to take more food. 

Perhaps she is bored with her usual food and is actually asking for a food upgrade? LOL. So this is one of my attempts to upgrade her food. Give this recipe a try if your baby is on a food strike too! Baby V likes her pan mee a lot that she actually open her mouth to ask for more feeds! I usually add a bit of salt to the pan mee dough but since this is a baby friendly recipe, I omitted salt this time. This recipe yields more than enough for two adults and a baby.

Ingredients for pan mee dough:

10-12 tablespoon all purpose flour 

1 egg

100 ml water

Ingredients for soup base:

2 shallots, chopped

A handful of anchovies, soaked and washed
3 mushrooms, halved 

Some minced pork

Some leafy green vegetable

Method:

Make a well in the middle of the flour and crack an egg inside. Mix everything together and add water. You might want to start with 10 tablespoon flour first and knead the dough until it does not stick to your hand. If it is sticky, add more flour. Knead for 10 minutes. Cover the dough with a cling wrap or a damp cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes. 

While waiting for the dough to be ready, stir fry anchovies and shallots until fragrant, add hot water (about 1 litre is enough for 2 big bowls of soup), and cook the soup base over low fire for 20 minutes. Remove anchovies and shallots from the soup by using a colander. Add minced meat and mushroom. Continue cooking for 5 minutes.

Once the dough is ready, divide the dough into smaller portions. Hand stretch the dough into random shape and drop it into the boiling soup. Add veggies and cook for a short while before serving. This is Baby V's version with tiny pan mee and chopped veggies.

Once I am done with Baby V's version, I added salt and pepper to the soup base for the adult version. The pan mee dough is also hand-pulled and cooked in the same way, except in bigger pieces. Bon appetit!

Alternatively, if you are not a fan of hand-pulled pan mee, you can opt to cut the dough into noodle shape. Just dust some flour, roll the dough flat, dust more flour, fold over the flat dough, and cut them up with a knife. Easy-peasy!