Zhajiangmian

A bean sauce fried slowly until the oil splits out and floats, served over noodles with raw vegetable shreds piled on top.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

For the sauce

• 400 g pork belly, in 5 mm dice
• 6 tablespoons sweet bean sauce
• 2 tablespoons fermented yellow bean paste
• 4 tablespoons flavourless oil
• 20 g ginger, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 200 ml water

To serve

• 600 g thick wheat noodles
• 1 cucumber, in matchsticks
• 100 g beansprouts, blanched 20 seconds
• 1 carrot, in matchsticks
• 100 g edamame, cooked
• 4 radishes, sliced thin

Method

1. THE SAUCE IS FRIED UNTIL THE OIL SEPARATES AND FLOATS, and that is the finish line. It takes about twenty minutes over a low heat and for the first fifteen nothing appears to happen. Then the paste tightens, stops looking wet, and a layer of red-brown oil rises and sits on top. Before that point it tastes raw and sharply salty; after it, round and deep. There is no shortcut and no substitute for watching for it.
2. THE PASTES ARE LOOSENED BEFORE THEY GO IN. Straight from the jar into hot oil they scorch in patches and the burnt parts cannot be stirred out. Mix both with the water first and they go in as a liquid.
3. The two bean pastes stirred together with the water and the sugar until smooth. Set beside the stove.
4. Pork belly dice into a cold wok with the oil and brought up to a medium heat. Starting cold renders the fat out instead of searing it in.
5. Fried 10 minutes until the fat has run and the dice are browned at the edges.
6. Ginger and garlic in, 1 minute. Wine in, let it hiss away.
7. The loosened paste poured in, heat to LOW, and now the long part: 20 minutes, stirred every minute or two, scraping the base.
8. Watch for the oil. When it has separated and sits in a clear layer on top, it is done. If it is still wet at 25 minutes, raise the heat slightly and keep going.
9. Noodles boiled, drained and rinsed BRIEFLY under warm water -- these are served with a thick salty sauce and a slippery noodle carries it better than a starchy one.
10. All the raw vegetables arranged on a plate, not mixed in.
11. Noodles into bowls, two spoons of sauce in the middle, and everyone takes the vegetables they want and turns the whole thing over.
12. The sauce keeps a fortnight in the fridge under its own oil and is better after a day.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes