A noodle soup from a 1914 Chicago cookbook, one of the Chinese American restaurant dishes yakamein descends from: noodles in seasoned stock with onion, celery and soy, shredded ham on top.
Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Yakamein pages and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 1 quart (950 ml) soup stock
- ¼ pound (115 g) noodles
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- ¼ pound (115 g) minced ham
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce (“syou”)
- 1 small onion, chopped fine
- 1 stalk celery, chopped fine
- 1 pinch pepper
Directions
Key ingredients
- Boil the noodles until tender, about 10 minutes. Lift them out of the hot water and put them in cold water to soak while you make the soup.
- Bring the stock to a boil with the onion and celery, the pepper, salt and soy sauce, and boil 10 minutes.
- Drain the noodles, add them to the soup and boil 5 minutes more.
- Shred the ham and sprinkle it on top just before serving.
Notes
Source “Yat Ko Main,” from Sara Bosse and Onoto Watanna, Chinese-Japanese Cook Book (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1914), pp. 12–13, read from the archive.org page images; the book is in the public domain. The quantities and method are the book’s. Its “soup stock” is made by boiling beef, veal and chicken bones, chicken feet and giblets slowly for five to eight hours; any good meat stock will do. “Syou” is glossed in the book as “(Chinese sauce)”, that is, soy sauce. The pepper is unmeasured in the source.
Why it is here Recipes like this, printed in American Chinese cookbooks from 1911 to 1932 under spellings such as “Yet Gai Mein”, “Yat Koi Min” and “Yet-Ca-Mein”, are the documented ancestors of New Orleans yakamein. The recipe just before it in the book is served with hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters; a 1911 Detroit cookbook’s version already puts half a boiled egg in each bowl and leaves the seasoning to the table.
The dish The Yakamein section (/yakamein/) covers the dish’s history, its name and how the recipes differ.
The photo The photograph is the cookbook page itself: Bosse and Watanna, Chinese-Japanese Cook Book (1914), p. 12, with Yat Ko Main at the foot of the page.