I spent a part of my childhood in Beijing and my mom is from Beijing. One of the dishes my mom made was fried bean sauce noodles with this fried bean sauce. If you had Jajangmyeon from a Korean Chinese restaurant, it has origin to original Zha Jiang Mian. However over the years the recipe had changed and now they are completely different. The Chinese version has a meat sauce and lots of vegetable toppings that is mixed in. I usually just have it with carrots and cucumbers. This is a great summer’s dish because it requires very little cooking (a plus in summer time) like my cold noodles.
Fried bean sauce noodles is a dish my mom likes to make when we don’t know what to eat and needs something quick. She would get soybean sauce which is fermented and another sweet sauce, tian mian sauce. This sweet sauce is similar to hoisin sauce and you can see it being served with peking duck as well. This sauce is not actually made from any beans but barley, it has a sweet and savoury taste to it. The fermented soybean paste is pretty sauce but has a lot of flavour in it. That’s why you don’t need a lot of ingredients to make this sauce and it’s a great midweek dish. This is one of my favourite dish to make when I’m lazy but want a hearty meal that is ready under 15 minutes. The sauce can store up to 2 weeks.
Little changes
The only thing I’ve changed is the aromatics portion which is fried before and discarded. It add a subtle flavour but if you are missing these ingredients, it’s not a huge deal. You can find most of these ingredients at most grocery stores.
Now if you search up this recipe there will be a lot of variations and you may get the Korean Jajangmyeon which uses Korean black bean paste and has a lot of more vegetable. I usually prefer this sauce simply because it’s easier to prepare (only 3 ingredients) and I only need to cut vegetables for the toppings. Sometimes I’m just lazy hehe.
Pro-tip:
- Depending on the type of ground pork you are using, use less or more oils. Lean ground pork will have less oil and regular ground pork will have more
- Don’t add salt to this recipe. The soybean sauce already has a lot of salt in it
- When serving, scoop a small amount of the sauce with some noodle water because a small amount goes a long way.
Beijing Fried Bean Noodle Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 packs of wheat noodles depending on how much everyone eats
Fried bean sauce
- 1 Pack of Soybean sauce 400g
- 1 lb Ground beef
- ¼ cup Tian Mian sauce
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
Aromatics
- 2 Bay leaves
- 2 Star anise
- 1 Spring onion
- 1 Slice of ginger 1cm thick
- 1 Small piece of cinnamon stick
- 5 Dried chilis
Toppings
- 1 English cucumber
- 1 Carrot
- 1/2 lb Bean sprouts optional
Instructions
- In a wok, add 2 tbsp of oil, heat it on medium
- Put in the aromatics and stir fry for 5 minutes
- Take out the aromatics and discard
- Add in the ground pork and stir fry until no pink can be seen
- Add in soybean sauce and tian mian sauce into the wok and turn the heat to medium low and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Once the ground pork is all cooked, it is ready. You can serve it right away or store it in an airtight container for later use
- Meanwhile cut the carrots and cucumber into thin slices.
- Bring a pot of water to boil and parboil carrots for 1 minute.
- Boil the noodles to desired doneness, put the noodles into individual bowls.
- Place some carrots, cucumber and the sauce onto the noodles. Add a bit of the water you cook the noodles in to help mix the sauce. Enjoy
