Noodles with bean paste (simplified Chinese: 炸酱面; pinyin: zhájiàng miàn) is a very popular traditional dish in Beijing. It mainly contains three ingredients: hand-tossed noodles, vegetable pieces as well as pork. It could be hot or cold. Delicious wheat noodles with fried bean paste is one of the best dishes that Beijing has to offer. The noodles come with a variety of toppings including egg slices, bean sprouts, cucumbers and carrots, and are succulent, chewy, and filling. Local Beijing people, especially elder ones like to eat hot noodles in the cold days and to eat cold noodles in hot weather.

Recipe outline

The following is a rough sketch for making zha jiang mian.

Dice scallions and garlic.

Stir-fry the spring onions and garlic until they are slightly brown. (One could also add shredded tofu or soybeans to this step).

Add meat to the wok. Stir-fry the ground pork until it is slightly brown.

Add the yellow soybean paste, sweet bean sauce, broad bean paste, or hoisin sauce to the mixture with some water and simmer.

Serve this meat sauce over noodles. If desired, add condiments like shredded carrots, shredded cucumbers, bean sprouts, cilantro, scrambled eggs, fresh soybeans/edamame, vinegar and hot sauce.

In Sichuan they seem to NOT fry the scallions at all. They are added chopped up, raw at the bottom of the bowl. Red chili oil is also added to the bottom of the bowl.

Red, broad bean paste is used to cook the meat.

Mix before eating.

* 黄瓜     huáng gua:     cucumber
* 大蒜     dà suàn:         garlic
* 青蒜     qīng suàn:       garlic sprouts
* 豆芽     dòu yá:           bean sprout
* 黄豆     huáng dòu:      soya bean
* 香椿     xiāng chūn:     Chinese toon