Chinese cuisine in the Yukon answers the call of the wild
Swapping urban China for the Yukon in Canada’s far north allowed Matthew Bossons to hunt and harvest the abundant bounty of the region, and adapt the cuisine of his Chinese wife’s homeland to their new surroundings
It’s a frigid December day, and the kitchen in our small home fills with a rich and comforting aroma, a harmonious blend of savoury beef broth, fragrant star anise, warm cinnamon and a subtle, zesty hint of Sichuan peppercorn. My wife, Kiki, and I take turns monitoring and stirring the large metal pot on the hob, filled with clear consommé broth emitting that signature scent of Lanzhou beef noodle soup. The dish is most famous for its hand-pulled noodles but, for me, the slow-boiled ambrosial soup is the real star.
In 2020, on a trip to Gansu province, a local restaurateur in the capital, Lanzhou, demonstrated his process for making the iconic dish. He dunked a chicken carcass and a heap of beef bones into a large metal pot filled with water at a roiling boil before adding a medley of spices – star anise, cloves, bay leaves, cumin seeds, Sichuan peppercorns and fennel seeds. A large slab of brilliant red beef was also tossed into the pot to slowly cook in the aromatic mixture.
In the years since, Kiki and I have recreated Lanzhou lamian on countless occasions. Our first attempts were at our small flat in Beijing, usually on a lazy Sunday, when we’d have ample time to monitor the simmering pot. When we moved to Shanghai, in the summer of 2021, we continued our exploration of the dish there. While mostly following the recipe I learned in Gansu, we often had to substitute chicken broth for the bird carcass when the latter was not available.
Matthew Bossons adds spruce grouse to a frying pan in preparation for a localised rendition of a sweet and sour pork dish. Photo: Crystal Schick
Today, however, we have bird remains, although not from a domesticated chicken. Instead, we are using a wild chicken-like bird that roams the woods of North America, known as a ruffed grouse. I’d shot the small game bird a few weeks before, while on a hunting trip in the woods, and had vacuumed-sealed its remains and tossed them in the freezer at our new home in Whitehorse, capital of Canada’s Yukon territory.
Kiki and I are thrilled to have a proper bird carcass to use in our broth, and we’re particularly excited to be adapting a beloved Chinese dish to feature local ingredients from our new surroundings in Canada’s far north. The real star of this localised reimagining of Lanzhou lamian, though, is our beef substitute: the shin bones and shank meat from a bull moose.
The broth simmers away on our hob for hours – six, to be precise – and the steam emitting from the pot fills our arctic home with humidity reminiscent of south China. Condensation runs down the inside of our kitchen windows, outside which the mercury sits at roughly minus 30 degrees Celsius.
When the soup is finished, it’s poured over Kiki’s hand-pulled noodles, with tender, slow-cooked moose shank and thinly sliced daikon added to each bowl. We top it off with spring onion and coriander, a splash of black vinegar and a drizzle of chilli oil.
