In Search of Dough: biangbiang noodles (youpo chemian 油泼扯面)

Biangbiang noodles are a damn tasty treat that I became addicted to at first bite. Despite all the variations, it consists of a relatively simple formula. Chewy noodles, a few blanched vegetables, and an oily spicy/salty sauce. Sure, a bowl will only set you back about RMB 12 (a little less than 2 dollars), but there is something to be said for actual home cooking so we wanted to figure out how to make a killer version of biangbiang mian.

With that in mind, we found two Shaanxi noodle shops and ate four bowls of noodles one afternoon to suss out the exact ingredients we should throw into our noodles. The first pick was obvious – the site of my first bowl of biangbiang mian – the Shaanxi Folk Culture Restaurant 陕西民俗文化餐厅 on Gulou Dongdajie 鼓楼东大街. The second, Yellow River 黄河陕西面名小吃, we picked upon a recommendation from Beijing Eats (by Eileen Wen-Mooney).

Yellow River 黄河陕西面名小吃

The bowl of Yellow River noodles was huge and smelled amazing. It tasted even better. It was fragrant with the ground red chilis, but also with a subtler scent I later surmised was a high quality (i.e. very fragrant) peanut oil. I snuck into the kitchen and watched the chef assemble the dish. Fresh noodles were thrown into boiling water, and a few vegetables tossed in after, and everything was cooked and fished out with a few minutes and dumped into a bowl. At this point, the chef dumped a spoonful of dried spices and a handful of chopped leeks on top of the noodles,then ladled on a generous amount of hot, hot oil. The oil sizzled loudly on top of the spices and leeks, effectively deep-frying them for a second and making them fragrant, or xiang (this is technique of frying sauces, spices, and herbs in hot oil releases their flavor).

We poked, prodded, and slurped our way through the noodles, coming up with the following list of ingredients:

• Noodle
• Baby bak choy
• Bean sprouts
• Leeks
• Dried ground chili (we saw charred chili flakes and dried garlic)
• Super fragrant peanut oil
• Perhaps MSG or salt?

That was it. As far as we could tell that is…thus, we surmise that it’s all about quality ingredients and being able to pull some pretty tasty chewy noodles.

Shaanxi Folk Culture Restaurant 陕西民俗文化餐厅

The owner is a friendly old man from Shaanxi, whose daughter (waitress and noodle-maker) recognized us from prior visits and invited us into the kitchen to watch as she made our biangbiang mian. Turns out the noodles are only pulled after we order, so we got a demonstration. The girl is a pro, and it was all that we could do to keep our eyes focused as her nimble hands rolled and pulled and stretched and danced around. Problematic, as we would have to recreate this soon.

Biangbiang mian is a pulled noodle, not a rolled one (despite the rolling pin in the background). She used the rolling pin once to flatten out the rectangular block of dough (about the size of a deck of cards) and pressed a lengthwise indent deep into the middle of the flattened block, which would split the noodle into two strands after it’s pulled thin. She grabbed the ends and slowly stretched the wad of dough with two hands, then BIANG! slapped the string against the table and then once again pulled the noodles out long. Repeat, a couple of times, till the noodles were thin and flat.

The basic ingredients are the same as Yellow River. However, they omitted bean sprouts and their sauce was more than just chili flakes and oil – there was soy sauce and vinegar, and we were instructed (actually, quite decidedly ordered) to make sure we mixed up the noodles with the sauces and spices before we took a bite. In sum, the ingredients for this biangbiang mian are:

• Noodles (flour, egg, water)
• Youcai (rape)
• Leeks
• Chili flakes (on top)
• Soy/vinegar sauce

Doing detective work on the contents of the sauce was easy since we just asked the chef, who cheerfully obliged us. On top of the freshly pulled noodles, she had tossed approximately one teaspoon of the following:

• Soy sauce
• Black vinegar
• MSG (only about 1/3 tsp)
• Chicken stock (powder)
• Salt
• Ground chili (she called it wuzi’r, but no one we’ve asked knows what that is)
• Sesame oil

As she was pulling and boiling the noodles, she had simultaneously heated up a small wok of oil, and as the final step she poured a generous ladle on top of the noodles. It didn’t quite sizzle the way I saw at Yellow River, but I imagine the purpose was similarly to flash fry the spices and enhance the sauce.

There you have it. A few simple ingredients brought us a few marvelous bowls of biangbiang mian. I have a feeling that here, simplicity begets goodness, but we shall see if we’ve managed to learn anything this afternoon when we try our hand at this Shaanxi speciality.

Addresses:

Shaanxi Folk Culture Restaurant 陕西民俗文化餐厅: 267 Gulou Dongdajie 鼓楼东大街267号

Yellow River Shaanxi Famous Noodles and Snacks 黄河陕西面名小吃: 24-5 Meishuguan Dongjie, Dongcheng 东城区美术馆东街甲24-5号