This is my first attempt at zha jiang mien, a Chinese noodle dish that's usually a mix of vegetables atop a meat and tofu sauce. It's Chinese spaghetti, if you will. Today, I used a mix of wood ear mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, and pressed tofu in lieu of pork. Since the meat version doesn't require much pork to begin with, the difference in taste is not unbearable even to meat lovers.
The biggest pain in the you-know-where about Chinese cooking is finely slicing so many vegetables. This is after already dicing up tofu, mushrooms, onions, and garlic for the sauce!
But it's worth it. The noodles are topped with sauce, then vegetables, and everything is mixed together while the noodles and sauce are still hot. The result is a big variety of colors, flavors, and textures.
3 comments:
I like your version. The trick is to find a good zha jiang sauce... slightly sweet, but with that extra something to it...
You have to make it! I am still tweaking my recipe, but the basic sauce is a combo of Chinese bean paste (dou ban jiang) and either hoisin sauce or sweet noodle sauce (tien mien jiang, aka duck sauce).
I know you sautee onions, a very little bit of garlic, pork, tofu, and scallions, then add the two sauces and some sugar, salt, and white pepper. But the proportions need to be perfect, and I'm not there yet.
Sounds like a very scientific concoction... I see you with a white lab robe in the kitchen :-)
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