Zhajiangmian (Chinese Noodles with Meat Sauce)

[zhemao]

I've been sitting on this one for a while and finally decided to post it. This is a well-known recipe from northern China. A variant called Jajangmyeon is popular in South Korea. The Chinese name literally means "fried sauce noodles". The preparation is pretty simple, you make a sauce from ground meat and various bean pastes, pour it over wheat noodles, then top it with chopped raw cucumbers or lettuce.

Ingredients:

• Wheat noodles


• Ground turkey (ground pork would also work)


• Dark soy sauce


• Doubanjiang (chili broad bean paste)


• Hoisin sauce


• Rice wine


• Sugar


• Garlic


• Scallions


• Cucumbers


• Vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Put the ground meat into a mixing bowl and pour in about two tablespoons each of dark soy sauce and rice wine. Add a half tablespoon of sugar and mix well.


2. Finely chop a clove of garlic and chop a scallion root.


3. Add a spoonful of vegetable oil to a pan and heat the pan on medium.


4. Add the garlic and scallions, stir fry until a little brown.


5. Add a tablespoon of doubanjiang and spread it across the pan.


6. Add the ground meat to the pan and mix thoroughly with the other ingredients.


7. Continue stirring until the meat completely turns color. Use your spatula to separate the meat chunks from each other.


8. Add a tablespoon of hoisin sauce and some water.


9. Cover and let the meat simmer for about a minute.


10. Turn the heat up to high and stir as the liquid reduces. Once the liquid has mostly reduced, turn off the heat and remove the sauce from the pan.


11. Boil the noodles until fully cooked, then drain.


12. Slice the cucumber into thin matchsticks.


13. Place the noodles in a bowl, cover with some sauce, then top with cucumber slices.

And there you have it. The meat sauce can be made ahead of time and then refrigerated. Then you can just quickly cook a fresh batch of noodles and chop some cucumber. The meat sauce also goes well with rice if you get tired of noodles.

You can very the ingredients for the meat sauce however you want. My version with doubanjiang and Hoisin sauce is a more Tianjin-style recipe. The traditional Beijing style uses yellow soybean paste, which is quite salty. The Korean version uses black bean paste.

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