Sunday, February 24, 2013

Sichuan cold noodles


Serving: 10
Picture taken from http://i0.fantong.cn 

Ingredients:

  1. Chinese dried wheat noodles or Fettuccine 500 grams
  2. Mung Bean sprouts 150 grams or thinly sliced cucumber matchsticks


     Sauce:

  • Soy sauce 125 grams
  • Sugar 75 grams
  • Chinese vinegar 75 grams
  • Sesame paste or Peanut butter 75 grams
  • Roasted sesame seed 100 grams
  • Garlic paste (beyond minced) 50 grams
  • Optional: Sichuan peppercorn powder
  • Scallion, green part thinly sliced 75 grams
  • Sesame oil 50 grams
  • Chili Oil 100 grams or less 

Direction:
1. Cook the noodle according to direction, cool with cold water, and drain.  Spread the noodles out in a large baking pan and mix with 2 tablespoon of sesame oil.
2. Mix all the ingredients for sauce together in a bowl, mix with the cooked noodles and bean sprouts.

Tips:

  1. Noodles cooked Al-dente are the best for this dish.
  2. After noodle is cooled and drained, really spread the noodles out and mix with sesame oil to prevent sticking
  3. The sauce taste the best if all the amounts are correct, I use a kitchen scale that has both US and Metric weights
  4. Chili oil can be made at home: 
Sichuan Chili Oil
(from Fuschia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty)
Ingredients
1/2 C chile flakes (I generally use a combination of coarse Korean chili flakes and crushed facing heaven chiles, but you can use any kind you like, at whatever heat level you like)
2 C neutral oil (I use safflower oil, usually)
Directions
1. Put the chile flakes into a glass jar.
2. Heat the oil on the stove until it hits 225-250 F. (If you go over, just let it cool down to that range, no big deal.)
3. Pour it over the chile flakes and stir once or twice.