Dan Dan Noodles - 担担面

Omnomnomno- oh God it burns

I love anything with Szechuan pepper in it, and particularly this dish. If you haven’t had it before, Szechuan pepper is spicy but weirdly numbing. It makes pretty simple dishes like this one incredible.

Make it, it’s delicious. You may need to hunt some ingredients down at an Asian grocer.

Ingredients

The sauce

• 2tbsp of sesame paste

• 2tbsp of doubanjiang, which is a spicy Chinese chilli soybean paste you can get at supermarkets usually, and Asian grocers always

• 4tbsp soy sauce

• 3tsp white sugar

• A pinch of Chinese five spice

• 4tsp Sichuan pepper powder, ideally ground from peppercorns

• 3tbsp Chinese chilli oil

• 1 cup of chicken broth

Pork

• 2 tsp hoisin sauce

• 2 tsp soy dauce

• 1 tbsp of Chinese cooking wine

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

• 250g fatty pork mince

• Pinch of Chinese five spice

To Serve

• 500g of udon noodles

• Two bok choi bunches

For the sauce

Mix everything except the oil and chicken stock in a bowl, then gently stir those liquids in. The oil will sit on the surface, and that’s fine.

For the Pork

Mix the hoisin, soy, cooking wine and spice. Heat some oil in a pan and add the pork, whacking it with a spoon or whatever to break it up. Add the sauce once it’s all white (from pink), then turn off the heat. Once it’s settled, dump it into a bowl and set it aside.

For the Noodles

Cook the noodles the way the packet says, chuck in the bok choi once the noodles are cooked and turn off the heat. Let them soak/wilt for a minute, then drain.

What to Do

Ladle a quarter of the sauce into each bowl. Stack the noodles on top, with the pork on top of that. Nestle the bok choi in. Instruct your eaters to mix before eating to store the sauce through.

Delicious and numbing.