Zhajiang Mian 炸醬面

There are millions of recipes for this sauce, different part of China, Korea and Japan all make different ones; it would not be stretching the truth to say every single family has a different recipe. The most important difference is the bean paste used. Korean, for example, makes jajangmyeon 자장연 using black bean paste (chunjang 춘장) and consider it a Chinese dish although chunjang is rarely seen in China. They love it and a lovely dish it is. Japanese uses miso, of course. Cantonese uses hoisin sauce 海鮮醬 and ground bean sauce 磨豉醬. Way up in the northeastern part of China, they use a soy beans paste called dajiang 大醬. Out west they use hot bean paste 辣豆瓣醬 with sweet flour paste 甜面醬. No matter where you go, this is all about fermented beans. Every village has its own fermented bean paste. The origin of zhajiang mian though is likely Beijing. And in the capital they use sweet flour paste and a kind of soy beans paste called 'dry yellow paste' 干黃醬. Here I use a Beijing recipe: ground pork is first browned and then a little soy sauce and cooking liquor is added. After removing the pork equal amount of the two paste are added into the frying pan with the rendered fat still inside with some finely chopped ginger. The sauce is cooked on medium heat for a minute or two before putting the port back in. Cook it slowly for a few more minutes, add some chopped scallions in the end and you have zhajiang. Cook up some noodles, I like some shredded cucumber, press some garlic, a little hot oil, a little fresh scallion to go with the zhajiang. This day I don't have any cucumber at home so I put in some bean sprout and a few soy bean/edamame. There is really good reason why this simple dish is so loved across regional and national boundaries. No matter where you are, it is the true glory of beans.