Little pot rice noodles

Soak the dried rice noodles in cool water at least four hours or up to overnight.

Halve the cao guo and scoop out the seeds, keeping only the shell; toast three to four star anise and three cao guo over a medium low flame about three minutes until the cao guo browns very slightly, then take them out.

Blitz the cao guo to a powder in a coffee or spice grinder, then the star anise, and set both aside.

Remove the hard fibrous ends of the Chinese chives and slice the rest into one inch sections, 30 g per serving.

Mince 40 g of suan cai per serving.

Swirl a bit of oil into a wok, add half a teaspoon of dark brown sugar per serving and fry over a medium low flame until it dissolves into the oil, then add the chopped suancai.

Add a quarter teaspoon each per serving of the star anise and cao guo powders and fry about three minutes, then take it out; the chili element is handled in the soup instead.

For the jiao tong jiang sub, work from a teaspoon of Sichuan chili bean paste per serving amped up with two teaspoons of Cantonese ground bean sauce, and pound them together.

In a wok with a bit of oil, add a quarter teaspoon per serving of red fragrant chili powder, a quarter teaspoon per serving each of star anise and cao guo powder, an eighth teaspoon per serving of Sichuan peppercorn powder and the pounded pastes.

Fry over a low flame about five minutes until the oil is stained good and red, then set it aside; scale all of these components up to keep on hand.

For the Yunnan sweet soy sauce sub, mix one part dark soy sauce to two parts light soy sauce to three parts molasses.

Parboil the soaked noodles in bubbling water 45 seconds to al dente, then shock them in cool water to stop the cooking; they keep a day or two in the fridge.

Marinate 60 g minced pork per serving with an eighth teaspoon each of salt and sugar, half a teaspoon of cornstarch, a sprinkle of white pepper powder, a quarter teaspoon of soy sauce and half a teaspoon of Shaoxing wine, mixing well about one minute.

Bring two and a quarter cups of stock to a heavy simmer in a pot and drizzle in a teaspoon of lard.

Press the pork bit by bit against the side of the bowl into little meat cakes and drop them in.

Add a tablespoon of the Chaotong chili sauce sub, a quarter cup of the suanyancai sub and half a tablespoon of the sweet soy sauce sub and bring to a rapid boil.

Dip in the chopped Chinese chives, a handful of vegetable such as bean sprouts, and the parboiled noodles.

Add the seasoning shown on screen, let it bubble together about 30 seconds, take it off the heat and top with two tablespoons of laoganma chili crisp.

Variation, western supermarket version: bring two cups of stock to a boil in a small pot, start with a teaspoon of lard and dissolve in a tablespoon of Japanese miso paste.

Add 40 g chopped sauerkraut and the minced pork in the same little cakes, then two teaspoons of soy sauce and a teaspoon of molasses.

Add a bit of vegetable such as quartered bok choy, then the parboiled noodles, the on-screen seasoning, and bring to a boil.

Finish with 20 g each of chopped scallion and cilantro in place of the jiucai and the same two tablespoons of laoganma chili crisp.

Alternative for the meat: form it in a ladle into one meat cake and cook that in the soup, as some cooks do for Nam Ngiao in Northern Thailand.