Beijing-Style Meat Sauce and Noodles

Meet zha jiang mian, the mos t popular Chinese dish you’ve never heard of.

j B Y A N D R E W J A N J I G I A N k

Have you ever “discovered” something new only to find that it’s everywhere you turn? That was my experience with the meaty Chinese noodle dish zha jiang mian (“ja jang mee-AN”), and I’ve never been so glad to find a new favorite that I can get in most any Chinese restaurant. This dish has many aliases—fried sauce noodles, Beijing meat sauce, and Old Beijing noodles, to name a few. But what’s even better is that it’s a good dish to make at home: simple, quick, and flavor-packed.

It starts with a sauce akin to a long-simmered, deeply flavored Italian meat ragu. The difference is that it simmers for just 20 minutes and calls for only ½ pound of ground meat. The savory secret? Two fermented products: sweet bean sauce (tián miàn jiàng) and ground bean sauce (huáng jiàng).

Most recipes begin by sautéing ground pork, minced mushrooms, garlic, ginger, and scallions. The bean sauces go into the pot next, along with some water. The sauce simmers until it develops a thick consistency and a mahogany color and the flavors meld. It’s then spooned over a mound of chewy lo mein noodles and topped with nests of colorful slivered raw vegetables. As the dish is stirred, the vegetables wilt from the heat but retain a refreshing crispness that’s an ideal foil for the deep, dark sauce.

Developing a zha jiang mian recipe for home cooks would require finding substitutes for the sweet bean and ground bean sauces, which are hard to source outside of Asian markets. Thick, dark sweet bean sauce has a salty-sweet-umami flavor reminiscent of hoisin, but it’s saltier, with an underlying bitter smokiness. It reminded me of molasses, which inspired my first substitution attempt: hoisin and molasses in a 3:1 ratio. The flavor was close but lacked the salty depth of the original. Adding soy sauce did the trick.

Ground bean sauce packs a savory-salty punch. Red miso paste, another long-fermented product, was a solid swap once I added a little more soy sauce.

When I used both substitutes, the flavors of the sauce were spot-on, but the dish was far too salty. Not wanting to upset the savory-salty-sweet balance by adjusting the ingredients, I tried a different approach: What if I simply used less sauce? It worked. The flavors were already so concentrated that reducing the quantity produced a balanced dish.

A few final tweaks: Mixing a baking soda solution into the ground pork kept the meat tender and moist. As for the vegetables, three provided variety and kept knife work to a minimum: Cucumber matchsticks and bean sprouts, along with scallion greens, provided freshness and crunch.

This one-pot meal comes together in just 30 minutes.

BEIJING-STYLE MEAT SAUCE AND NOODLES (ZHA JIANG MIAN)

S E RV E S 6

We prefer red miso in this recipe. You can use white miso, but the color will be lighter and the flavor milder. You can substitute 8 ounces of dried linguine for the lo mein noodles, if desired (see “Shopping for Lo Mein” on page 29), but be sure to follow the cooking time listed on the package. For an authentic presentation, bring the bowl to the table before tossing the noodles in step 5. Our recipe for Beijing-Style Meat Sauce and Noodles for Two is available for free for four months at CooksIllustrated.com/jun18.

8 ounces ground pork ⅛ teaspoon baking soda 5 tablespoons red miso paste 5 tablespoons soy sauce 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce 1 tablespoon molasses 8 scallions, white and light green parts cut into ½-inch pieces, dark green parts sliced thin on bias 2 garlic cloves, peeled 1 (½-inch) piece ginger, peeled and sliced into ⅛-inch rounds 4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced ½ inch thick 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 pound fresh lo mein noodles ½ English cucumber, unpeeled, cut into 2½-inch-long matchsticks (2 cups) 6 ounces (3 cups) bean sprouts

1. Toss pork, 2 teaspoons water, and baking soda in bowl until thoroughly combined. Let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk ½ cup water, miso paste, soy sauce, hoisin, and molasses together in second bowl. 2. Pulse white and light green scallion parts, garlic, and ginger in food processor until coarsely chopped, 5 to 10 pulses, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add mushrooms and pulse until mixture is finely chopped, 5 to 10 pulses. 3. Heat oil and pork mixture in large saucepan over medium heat for 1 minute, breaking up meat with wooden spoon. Add mushroom mixture and cook, stirring frequently, until mixture is dry and just begins to stick to saucepan, 5 to 7 minutes. Add miso mixture to saucepan and bring to simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens, 8 to 10 minutes. Cover and keep warm while noodles cook. 4. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large pot. Add noodles and cook, stirring often, until almost tender (center should still be firm with slightly opaque dot), 3 to 5 minutes. Drain noodles and transfer to wide, shallow serving bowl. 5. Ladle sauce over center of noodles and sprinkle with cucumber, sprouts, and dark green scallion parts. Toss well and serve.

Italy

China

From China to Italy?

Though most food historians no longer believe Marco Polo was the irst to introduce pasta to Italy after his travels to China in the 13th century, perhaps he was still the irst to introduce zha jiang mian; the rich, savory meat sauce in the dish bears an uncanny resemblance to Italian ragu.

Chinese Favorite at Home A step-by-step video is available at CooksIllustrated.com/jun18