Zha Jiang Mian | Recipe
bean there.
done that.
Zha jiang mian (#炸酱面), a staple dish of Beijing that can be found from anywhere from little noodle stalls to gourmet hotel restaurants. Pork simmered in bean sauce, shao xing wine with chewy, bouncy noodles + balanced with julienned cucumbers for freshness. A rich, flavorful dish from humble ingredients. ♥️
The traditional Beijing version uses a yellow soybean sauce, but we went with a black bean sauce for ours because it’s what we had on hand! People also use sweet bean sauce or even hoisin, so whatever floats your boat or you have on hand!
you’ll need:
2-3 pork chops cut into 1-2 inch slices (or you could use ground pork)
4 tbsp black bean sauce
1 tbsp hoisin
2 tbsp shao xing wine (or mirin if you can’t find it)
1 cup water
1 cucumber julienned
3 slices ginger, minced
1.5 tbsp neutral oil
2 scallions, minced to top and white parts chopped long to add to cooking
2 star anise
bean sprouts (optional)
1.5 tbsp starchy noodle water (optional)
choice of noodles
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
let’s cook:
Add shao xing wine, ginger, garlic and sliced pork into a bowl. Set aside. Dilute the bean sauce with water, stirring until evenly mixed.
Heat your pan / wok to medium heat, add oil. Once the oil is hot, add in pork, shao xing wine, ginger, garlic. Add in white scallion part + star anise.
Once the pork has started to cook through, add in the diluted bean sauce + hoisin and stir in evenly. If the sauce is too thick you can dilute it with additional water or add in more bean sauce if it feels too thin for your liking. Cook until your sauce has reduced to be thick and cover the pork generously, but not gloopy (or too thin).
Blanch bean sprouts if adding and add them into your pan.
Cook noodles per directions, remove from water, rinse and set aside. You can add some of the starchy noodle water to thicken the sauce as well if you like.
Add noodles to a bowl along with your saucy pork, add cucumbers and scallions and mix everything well!