A Sichuan Chow Mein

It’s not often that my dad cooks these days, but when I was growing up, he made plenty of Saturdays lunches for me to eat before heading to my weekly lessons at Chinese school. One of the things he made regularly was Sichuan stir-fried noodles (chǎomiàn, 炒面). The formula stayed the same through the years: al dente noodles drained and stir-fried in a potent dose of huajiao, dried chilies, pantry-friendly pickled mustard stems, soy sauce for flavoring, some ground meat and a smattering of cabbage. We always had the ingredients ready to go in the kitchen.

It was only recently that I made the connection that Dad’s chaomian was, obviously, a Sichuan take on the Chinese American classic chow mein. Since I didn’t grow up eating any Cantonese or American Chinese food, the relationship between chow mein and Dad’s occasional chaomian had escaped me all those years that he was cooking this dish for me.

On my last trip home, with dried alkaline noodles from The Mala Market in hand, I asked my dad to make his signature stir-fry noodles again. It tasted better than it ever has, and I got to see how he does it.

Fun fact: Any time there’s a chopstick shot in the final, plated beauty image of one of my recipes, that’s Dad helping me by lending a literal extra hand. Mala Mama is always busy making the rest of dinner or cleaning up while I shoot the last photos, and some things I can’t do on my own. The reward for his trouble (and you would not believe the stress this shot always puts the man under—I have to constantly remind him to stop holding his breath and breathe out every once in a while)? Taste-testing the bite in question.

Making Sichuan Stir-Fried Noodles

These simple stir-fry noodles are cheap, quick and versatile. You can add or subtract whatever ingredients you like, but the recipe below reflects the way I’ve always eaten it.

First you cook the ground pork in a hot pan to allow the fat to render while the meat browns. (Stir-fry the meat enough to separate the into a mince, then leave it alone to develop a crisp!) This is, in my opinion, the most important part of stir-frying ground meat—at least for Chinese recipes. Eating clumsy, soft, dry, monotonous crumbles of ground pork is soul-sucking. Every bite I take of uninspired glop makes me want to give up on the whole meal. Whole bowls of the best mapo tofu are ruined for me when the meat hasn’t been properly “炒熟 (chǎoshú)” or seared (not the best translation, but the closest intimation we have for this particular quality of “cooked through” in English).

By the way—don’t add salt here! If you add salt to ground meat without additional liquid to maintain a hydration equilibrium, it’ll “吐水 (tushui),” or spit out water (i.e., get dry).

Remove the meat from the pan once it has reached this stage; this way it doesn’t overcook or steam into the aforementioned soft, monotonous crumble. Add more oil to the pan, then gently coax the aromatics into life before adding the cabbage and cooking it down. Once the cabbage is ready, you back the strained noodles and the ground pork that you’ve just cooked as well as zhacai (pickled mustard stems), seasoning, scallions and sauce. Toss everything to mix it, and finish the dish with a generous sprinkling of ground huajiao on top.

On the subject of oil and sauce: I never liked the mouthfeel of a too-greasy stir-fried noodle dish, but it’s a fine line between just slick enough and so dry it’s torturous to swallow. It’s far better to err on the side of saucy, but save that overcorrection for the end of your cooking. If you’re substituting a leaner meat, keep this in mind and be liberal with the extra oil.

For more dry noodle recipes, see Mala Mama’s potluck-favorite Sichuan Liangmian or Taylor’s classic adaptation of Sichuan Dan Dan Mian!