Recipe For Bouncy Biangbiang Noodles
Freezing weather. Airpocalypse. Netflix addiction. Laziness. They’re all fantastic reasons not to leave your house this winter. And not leaving the house provides a great opportunity to try this recipe for Xi’an’s most famous noodle, biangbiang mian.
The word biang is said to come from the sound the noodles make as you slap them against your chopping board or kitchen bench (see below). According to legend, the word went without a character for hundreds of years until a starving and impoverished scholar offered to invent one in exchange for a free bowl of noodles. The guy must have been starving to the point of hallucination because what he came up with was this:
A 58-stroke character that despite all the advances of modern technology cannot be entered into computers and smartphones. We promise making the noodles is far easier – and far more rewarding – than learning to write the character.
Ingredients
2 cups of plain flour – if you need to buy it, ask for 饺子粉 jiǎozifěn. Plus extra flour for your chopping board
1 cup of lukewarm water
1 tsp of salt, plus extra for seasoning
4 tbs of light soy sauce (生抽 shēngchōu)
2 tbs aged vinegar (陈醋 chéncù)
6-8 tbs of oil (preferably but not necessarily peanut oil)
1-2 tbs of chili flakes
6-8 cloves of garlic
2 chopped green onions (spring onions if you’re British, shallots if you’re Australian, 香葱 xiāngcōng to avoid confusion).
If you don’t already have these at home, use only the green parts of the ones you buy and put the white parts into a glass of water. They’ll grow back in a few days and you’ll never run out again.
Instructions
Place two cups of plain flour into your mixing bowl and mix in one teaspoon of salt. Add one cup of lukewarm water, a small splash at a time, mixing thoroughly between each addition.
Once your dough has formed, remove it from the bowl, place it on a well-floured board, and knead it for 10 minutes.
Return your dough to the mixing bowl, cover it, and leave it to rest for half an hour.
While your dough is resting, finely chop your green onions, mince your garlic, and prepare your chili flakes, soy sauce, vinegar, and oil.
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Photos: Garth Wilson, Wikipedia