Pickled Celery and Noodle Soup

I pickled some not-so-fresh celery a few days ago and totally forgot about it! Luckily, the whole point of pickling is that it preserves vegetables.

The celery in this dish is stripped of its coarser fibers, sprinkled with salt, and left to sit for about an hour. The salt is then rinsed off and the celery is squeezed dry. Then it's put into a plastic container with a light coating of sesame oil, a sprinkling of salt, and left to sit overnight. It's best eaten the next day, but a couple of days in the refrigerator doesn't hurt too much. I tossed it with slivered carrots and pressed tofu and topped it with a light drizzle of sesame oil for a cold side dish.

And, ever popular around here, "Throw everything into the pot" noodle soup. Today's noodle soup was cooked in a base of chicken stock, ginger, green onions, anise, rice wine, and sesame oil. The meal itself was made up of shitake mushrooms, chrysanthemum leaves, tofu cubes, dried baby shrimp, green onions, and refrigerated noodles (not dry; refrigerated is more toothsome and flavorful).