86. A different kind of Chinese noodles: Flat noodle sheet soup

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Chinese "Mian Pian"

You know in Chinese, ‘noodles’ are called ‘Mian Tiao’, which is literally translated as ‘flour strips’. This dish is very similar to a regular Chinese noodle soup, but it is called ‘mian pian’, meaning ‘flour sheet’.

I am not sure if this recipe originates from North East China, but I have never seen or heard of it elsewhere in China; in fact, I have never seen it in any restaurants in China -- it is my dad’s speciality, and he learned it from my grandparents. Oh, he has another similar one, I will show him off next time. :)

‘Mian pian’, just at its name suggests, is like a different kind of noodles with a different shape. Making them involves less hassle than making regular Chinese noodles by hand. For ‘Mian pian’, once the flour dough is made into a flat sheet, you can just ‘tear’ or ‘pull’ the sheet into smaller pieces, then boil it as you would do when making Chinese noodle soup.

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71. Noodle recipe: A simple traditional Chinese noodle recipe

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Traditional Chinese noodles

If you have been reading this blog, you certainly won't be too surprised by my ‘passion’ towards noodles. :)))) For example, last night, I was talking to my husband about our forthcoming traveling plans; if we are staying in an apartment or apartment hotel, where we can cook our own food, I will take some noodles with us to cook. … Ha… yes, that really shows how much I love noodles.


Noodles in the Supermarkets

I know I have already posted a couple of homemade noodle recipes, but we cannot always really have hand-made noodles every time we want to have noodles, after all, it takes some effort. An alternative is to buy the noodles from the supermarket and cook them straight away.

These ‘ready-to-cook’ noodles are really not a bad idea if you just want a quick fix noodle dish. They are made from fresh flour, and turned into ‘dried’ form. I was talking to my mother-in-law once about making noodles at home; she told me that in the old days in Spain, women used to make similar ‘ready-to-cook’ ‘Spaghettis’ at home, her mother would make quite a bit, and ‘sun dry’ them in the yard, so every time she could just use these homemade ones. I would love to try those noodles, but I guess the weather here is not good for drying them up, ... and I am lazy. :)) So I just go to the supermarkets.

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50. Chinese noodle recipe: soy bean paste mixed noodles / zha jiang mian

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Chinese soy bean paste mixed noodles

炸酱面

Please forgive me if I have been mentioning hot summer too much, Spanish summer is so irresistible to me. It is not only because I always like hot, sunny summer weather, but also this hot air in the day and nice gentle summer evenings all remind me the summers I had when I was at home in China.

Having been eating in the restaurants many days, what I really crave is ... Chinese cold noodles , :) like the ones I used to have at home, my mum made them... have tried to ask in many Chinese restaurants here if they serve them -- no, they don’t, but not much to complain about, because this is a quite typical Northern Chinese dish (I think), and a very home-made dish.

Soy bean paste Chinese noodles

This is definitely one of my favorite summer dishes -- a Chinese noodle dish , don’t even mention my auntie used to call me the noodle queen. :))

It is actually a very simple dish -- soybean paste mixed noodles. Although you can use packed soybean paste directly, the paste normally needs to be re-made. For example, you can stir fry it with different ingredients depending on your taste, then mix it with boiled and then rinsed cool noodles. So it is called zha jia mian , as in fried paste noodles .

This time I made home made noodles , similar to the Da lu Mian dish I made before. :)) Otherwise, you can use those ready-to-boil noodles sold in the shops as well.

Another thing to do is to make the soybean paste sauce. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are a few different types of soybean paste. The one commonly used for this dish is called Da jiang -- just the plain soybean paste, no actual soy beans or chillis in the paste, it is very salty, but has a very strong soybean taste.

The reason for re-making the soybean paste is to make its taste richer. Soybean paste can sometimes be re-boiled with seasonings for hours, or it can be stir-fried with vegetables, eggs or meat mince. And similarly to Da lu mian, you can also make some shredded cucumbers or carrots to go with the noodles.

In this recipe, I used eggs, green peppers and dried shrimps (which can be replaced with fresh shrimps). If the re-made soybean paste is salty enough, it can be kept well in the fridge for quite a few days.

Ingredients

• If you make the noodles at home, you will need flour, eggs, and salt
• For the soybean paste you will need
  oil, egg, green pepper (optional), soybean paste, dried shrimps (optional), spring onion, soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar and sesame oil .

Preparing the noodles

You can either use one egg or prepare the noodles without eggs, in which case you just need flour, water and a bit salt. In my previous post, I described in detail how to make the noodles by hand .

If you don't want to make the noodles yourself, you can also buy ready-to-boil noodles. However, keep in mind that the wider and thicker the noodles are, the better for this dish.)

Once you have made (or bought and unpacked) the noodles, simply boil them and then rinse them in in cold water.

Boiling the noodles

Preparing the Soybean Paste

1）Chop around 1 whole spring onion and 1 green pepper to small pieces.

2） Beat 2 eggs in a bowl.

Cooking Soybean Mixed Noodles

1） In a heated wok, pour in around 3 tablespoons of oil, when the oil is hot, put in chopped spring onions, and add 1 tablespoon cooking wine.

2）When you can smell the spring onion, add in whisked eggs and keep on stirring, the eggs are then becoming small pieces.

3）When the eggs are forming up, put the chopped green peppers and a handful dried shrimps, stir everything well.

4）Then add the soybean paste in (I added the whole package, the leftovers can be used for later anyway. You can add less though), then add 2 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1/2 tablespoon of white sugar, stir everything well, if it is too dry, add a bit water.

Mixing everything well

5）When everything is well mixed, turn off the fire, add in around 2 tablespoons of sesame oil before remove everything to a bowl.

Serving the noodles

In a big bowl, put rinsed noodles first, then add 1 or 2 tablespoons of ‘re-made’ soybean paste on the noodles. If you like, you can also add some shredded cucumber or carrots in, or chilli oil. Mix everything well in the bowl before eat.

Chinese zha jiang mian

It is good and fresh for a hot summer dinner. If you use ‘ready-to-boil’ noodles, it is just a quick fix dish. It can be eaten on its own, or with some small salad (liang cai dish) or stir fried.

11. Chinese home made noodles: Da Lu Mian

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Chinese da lu mian

打卤面

.... :)) I have a secret nick name given by my deeply beloved auntie - "noodle queen". ha... It shows how much I love Chinese noodles , and how many of them I can eat. If you let me start talking about how many types of Chinese noodles there are and in how many different ways they can be cooked, you will really have to bear with me for hours and hours (even if you restrict me to North East dishes). :))

Chinese Noodles

Ok, it seems my mind goes much faster than my typing when I think about Chinese noodles , so let me cut it short here. The most famous way of making noodles in China is La mian (or Chen mian ). Noodles will be made only by stretching the dough with two hands, and an experienced chef can achieve whatever the thickness or width of the noodles you want. This type of noodle dishes are typical from Northwestern and central China .

There is another famous way of making the noodles, called Dao xiao mian -- the chef would hold a well kneaded dough in one hand, and a knife in another, the desired shape of the noodles is achieved by slicing the dough. (Watching an experienced chef prepare the noodles in either these two ways is like watching an amazing performance-- a treat for your stomach will quickly follow the treat for your eyes).


Oh, there is another variety.... the one I am going to cook here, called Shou gan mian, means hand-made noodles by using rolling pin. (Btw, probably by now, you already guessed that Mian means noodles in Chinese, it also means "flour", depending on the context).

Typical Northeast Chinese noodles are really light, even if they are cooked with meat. It is totally different to the noodles you can find in restaurants (of different nationalities) here in UK. This recipe is called Da Lu Mian , it describes the sauce rather than the way of making the actual noodles. It is really good for spring/summer, and very home-made, almost impossible to find it in the restaurants in China --- not fancy, but really good for a fresh treat. :)) It takes some time, so for busy working people, probably it is good for a day like this (bank holiday). But once you are familiar with it, it can be fairly quick. My auntie and my dad used to make these noodles whenever I had a crave for them.

Making the Noodles

Making good dough is the first step towards making good noodles . Firstly, the dough cannot be too soft, so use a bit less water -- unfortunately, this means that your wrists might hurt. :(( Also for making the noodles stretchable and smoother in the mouth, you can add salt and eggs in the flour when making the dough. However, eggs are not a must, I used them in this recipe only because I really miss the taste of noodles made by my dad.

After making the dough , trying to roll it as thin as possible needs... patience and determination. :)) Well, you know, nowadays technology could make our lives easier. A useful device is the pasta maker . My dad used to use it, of course, in Chinese it called noodle maker . :)) Ha... I think Marco Polo would certify that they are the very same thing. :))) It helps make the noodles into even strips, and save lots of energy. The disadvantage ... if you have ever used it, you will know that cleaning it afterwards is also not easy job.) So I write down two methods below.

Ok, let’s make it now. I cooked for 3 people, I mean hungry people, including me. :))

1）Mix three cups of plain flour with 3/4 cup of water, one big egg and one table spoon of salt. Knead the dough well.

2）Roll the dough into thin "sheet" - as thin as possible. I divided the dough into 3 portions, since our board is not big enough, it is always easy to roll at a small scale anyway.

3）Fold the ‘sheet’ twice, make sure that you dust plenty of flour on the surface before folding.

4）Chop the folded sheet into thin strips.

5）Loosen the strips, dust more flour if needed.

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(With Pasta maker
Divide the dough into smaller portions, insert the dough into the sheet making part of the pasta maker setting No.2 thickness, then repeat it again , switch the setting to No.6 thickness.
Insert the sheet into noodle strips making part of Pasta maker.

Make sure you dust plenty of flour before each move.

Prepared Chinese noodles

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Then, boil the prepared noodles in water (you can add salt to avoid the noodles getting stuck together). And, after removing the noodles from the sauce pan, raise well in cold water -- the noodles are cold now - ready to serve.

Preparing the noodle sauce

There are lots of different noodle sauces (or soup I should say?), for example, Mu’er (black fungus) , green leaves...etc. Here I made one of the most popular recipes -- egg and tomato.

1）Chop the tomato into pieces and whisk two eggs.

2）In a heated wok, pour around 5 table spoons of oil, put tomato pieces in.

3）When the tomato is softening, pour in water ( I lost count of amount of water, 1.5L probably), bring water to boil.

4）Then pour whisked eggs into the boiling water, while using the spoon to stir the ‘soup’ to avoid eggs forming into a big piece.

5）Add two table spoon of salt ( a bit more than usual, cause the noodles self don’t have much salt), 1 table spoon of light soy sauce, a table spoon of ‘vegetable/mushroom’ essence.

---- Sauce is done!

Noodle Dip

Traditionally, there is also a bowl of sesame paste and a plate of thinly shredded cucumber on the table.

To prepare the sesame paste:
Put 3 table spoons of sesame paste in a rice bowl, gradually pour in water while whisk it, until the paste becomes thinner, and add some salt in. ( This sesame sauce is supposed to be a bit salty.)

Serving the noodles

The serving is to mix everything together, as in the very top picture:)


In a large bowl (or noodle bowl), put noodles in, then add a few big spoons of egg and tomato sauce, couple of spoons of sesame paste, and shredded cucumber on the top. If it is not salty enough, you can add light soy sauce. Also if you like, you can add a bit rice vinegar and chilli oil .


--- Then, enjoy!! It is super fresh and light for a warm day, oh, and very low fat. :))) (There is no way of gaining any fat after such hard work of making it.:))))