Preface
Since March, due to various reasons—including rushing to complete my thesis—I’ve started living off-campus. After paying rent, I had almost no savings left, and the restaurants nearby weren’t great (truly deserving of the title “gastronomic desert”). So, I decided to start cooking for myself.
Before writing this article, I was already quite proficient at preparing ready-to-cook meals from Hema Supermarket—just follow the instructions: boil, steam, stir-fry, or deep-fry. There’s really no technical skill involved, so I won’t elaborate further.
However, cooking entirely from scratch—from selecting ingredients all the way to plating—involves countless variables. So, I’m documenting the process here to share with friends who are also planning to cook for themselves! 
Preparing Ingredients
Having just returned from a trip to Shanghai, I decided on something simple. Following recommendations from both my mom and my girlfriend, I chose tomato-and-egg noodles—a dish widely regarded as one of the simplest meals possible.
First, I ordered ingredients via Dingdong Grocery. Opting for ordinary produce is perfectly fine. Here’s the first pitfall to avoid: don’t order from Taobao—it’s neither cheap nor fresh; nor should you go to Hema—the quality improves, but so does the price. Dingdong strikes the perfect balance between quality and affordability, delivering outstanding value for money.
For this meal, I bought three tomatoes for ¥6, seven or eight Chinese flowering cabbages (youcai) for ¥2 (I only ate one), eggs I’d purchased earlier at roughly ¥1 for two, plus just a few garlic cloves, some oil and salt, and a small portion of dried noodles (guāmiàn) as the staple. Altogether, the ingredient cost came to no more than ¥2.
The final ingredient cost totaled around ¥5.
Of course, utilities (water and electricity) aren’t included—too trivial to calculate—and labor isn’t counted either, since I genuinely enjoy cooking and don’t consider it an expense.
Cooking Begins
Rinse the tomatoes and Chinese flowering cabbage. Dice the tomatoes into small pieces and mince the garlic cloves into fine bits—size doesn’t matter much, just avoid tossing whole cloves straight into the pan.
Heat the oil in the wok first. Hold your hand a few centimeters above the surface—if it feels hot enough, it’s time to fry the eggs. It’s hard to describe precisely, but aim for the temperature range where the oil feels hot but hasn’t yet begun bubbling vigorously. If it’s too cool, the eggs won’t fry properly; if it’s boiling, the oil will splatter and risk burning your hands. Once the eggs are cooked, remove them from the pan and set aside—they’ll be eaten later.
Next, add the minced garlic to the hot oil and stir-fry until fragrant (it’s truly magical—once you begin frying garlic, intuition tells you this meal simply can’t go wrong). Then add the diced tomatoes. Since tomatoes contain lots of water, expect vigorous oil splattering—be prepared and protect yourself accordingly. If you’re inadequately protected and get scalded, it’s okay—but under no circumstances should you drop your spatula or flip the pan over (I nearly did just that!).
Once the tomatoes release their juices and begin simmering gently (“bubbling merrily”), it’s about ready. Add salt gradually—start with less, then adjust upward if needed. Don’t oversalt initially; otherwise, adding more water later would require re-boiling, which degrades flavor.
Then add an appropriate amount of water—enough to fully submerge the noodles and ensure they cook thoroughly. Wait for the water to reach a full boil, then add the dried noodles. If you’re unsure how much noodle to use, estimate by comparing its thickness to your thumb—today, I used the equivalent of two thumbs’ worth, which was just right. Feel free to use this as your reference. Add the greens after the noodles have cooked for a while, because noodles take longer to cook than greens—if reversed, the greens will turn mushy before the noodles are done.
While the noodles cook, prepare a side dish to accompany them—I brought some braised meat from home (just the right amount—not too much to waste, not too little to satisfy).
The finished dish looks like this:
Post-Mortem Review
- Used too much oil when frying the eggs—ended up deep-frying them instead. Cringe-worthy. †=
- Under-salted the noodles during boiling, so I added more later—but still ended up slightly bland. Fortunately, the flavorful braised meat balanced it out perfectly (intentional? Or accidental? .jpg)