As a Chinese who grew up in the north of China, I love noodles better than rice . This noodles with fried paste which has local characteristics of Beijing dishes often appears on my menu. If you are a noodle lover, you also will like it which contains nutrition and deliciousness.
Zha jiang mian includes noodles, seasonal vegetables, and fried paste. The natives of Beijing called the seasonal vegetables “cai ma” which should be eight or twenty kinds of vegetabels in the traditional recipe. About fried paste they used sweet flour paste(tian mian jiang) and soybean paste. They are official way. If you want to eat it quickly, don’t need to be so professional, you can use whatever you have.
What kinds of vegetables
The 8 authentic vegetables consist of Chinese Toona sinensis, cucumber shredded, celery shredded, water turnip shredded, peas, been sprout, green garlic shredded, Chinese cabbage shredded. The vegetables I used for this noodles are cucumber shredded, bean sprout, peas, radish shredded. We need to blanch all the vegetables except cucumber.
About the sweet flour paste( tian mian paste)
The traditonal cooking way has tian mian paste which can be bought on amazon. I used soybean paste added in rock sugar. Got the nice paste too.
Pork Belly or lean
When stir-frying pork belly, the fat will be oil, it can add fragrance. I prefer lean pork due to my age and health.
Noodles boiled
I want to say, the people of Beijing serve boiled noodles which go through running water in summer called (guo shui mian). They have boiled noodles directly in winter called (guo tiao er).
Notes:
If you like dry fried paste, add less water，otherwise, add more water. I added more water to simmer for 5-10 minutes.
Some people like to serve noodle with fresh clove garlic, one bite of noodles, one bite of garlic, try it if you like, you will get different feelings of eating noodles.
Beijing Noodles with Fried paste(Zha Jiang Mian)
Equipment
- Wok for stir-frying
- pan for boiling noodles
Ingredients
- 160 gram lean pork, chopped or cut into cubes
- 150 gram soybean paste, add one cup water, mixed well
- About 10 gram rock sugar
- 5 gram ginger, chopped
- one small green scallion, chopped
- 200 gram noodles
- One cucumber , shreeded
- 200 gram bean sprout, remove the ends
- 200 gram radish, peeled ,shredded
- 200 gram peas
- 3 tablespoon oil
Instructions
- Blanching the radish, bean sprout, peas to cook through,set aside
- Add oil to a wok, heat over high heat
- Add chopped ginger and green scallion, stirring for 2 seconds
- Add pork cubes, stir-frying for 3 minutes untill cooked through
- Add soy bean paste with water, turn down the fire to medium, simmer until almost dry or the state you like.
- Add water a pan , bring to a boil. add noodles , boiling until cooked through, transfer to a big bowl.
- Add some soybean paste , vegetables to the noodles, mixed well.
- Serve immediatedly
