Beijing Zha Jiang Mian, also called fried sauce noodles, is a traditional Chinese dish consisting of thick wheat noodles topped with fried sauce. The main ingredients are soybeans, pork belly, celery, radish, cucumber, and sweet bean sauce and dried yellow sauce, etc. It originates from Shandong province and now is very popular in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.

Ingredients

• 500 g of noodles
• 50 g of soybeans/edamame
• 30 g of soybean sprouts
• 100 g sliced pork belly
• 3 fresh shiitake mushrooms
• 50 g of celery
• 30 g of radish
• 30 g of julienned cucumber
• 30 g of white radish
• 30 g of toon
• 1 tbsp sweet bean sauce, or hoisin sauce
• 1 tbsp dried yellow sauce
• 300 ml water, 1 1/4 cup
• 2 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 star anise
• 2 stalk scallions, chopped
• 1 tsp ginger, minced
• 1 tsp cooking wine

Making method

• Soak the soybeans in the fresh water, cook in boiling water and remove
• Cook soy sprouts in a wok
• Cut fresh shiitake mushrooms into small cubes of half centimeter square.
• Peel and shred radish, white radish and cucumber
• Cut celery and toon into small pieces
• Heat the oil on a wok, and stir-fry ginger, garlic and sliced pork belly with medium heat
• Use a bowl to mix the sweet noodles sauce and dried yellow sauce evenly
• Stir-fry the mixed sauce
• Add the pork belly, shiitake mushroom into the sauce and cook with low heat about 10 minutes (if dry, may add little water)
• Add scallion powder in the end
• Cook the noodles in another pot with boiling water
• Put all cooked and raw ingredients all together then serve

Zha Jiang Mian (炸酱面): Beijing’s signature noodles