Black Bean Chili Oil Is Our Family’s Secret Noodle Sauce

Back when Fongchong was new to our family and I was still struggling to feed her (because she would eat only food that tasted at least somewhat like food she’d eaten in China), various kinds of noodles were my go-to. This included something we called Wednesday Night Noodles because I made it for the two of us every Wednesday when her dad was out hosting a live music show.

Wednesday Night Noodles was simply chao mian, or stir-fried wheat noodles, made with whatever was in my refrigerator: usually a Cantonese-style sausage (lap cheong), a Chinese green like bok choy, yu choy or Napa cabbage, some reconstituted dried shiitake mushroom, carrot, celery, onion or green onion, etc. Plus a spicy sauce I made up from my Sichuan pantry. The whole thing was made up, which is why I never published a recipe for it here. But boy, did my Cantonese daughter with a Sichaunese palate love it. And it got even better when we started importing an alkaline wheat noodle, which stands up better to stir-frying than the typical wheat noodle of the same size.

Nowadays I often make a similar stir-fried noodle with our wide rice noodle, which is called he fen in Mandarin and ho fun in Cantonese. (You’ll also see this noodle called chow fun, even though “chow” actually means fried, because beef chow fun is such a well known dish.)

In southern China, cooks often stir-fry he fen—which is usually a bit less wide than what is used for beef chow fun in the U.S.—with egg. Stir-fried rice noodles with egg (jīdàn chǎo hé fěn, 鸡蛋炒河粉—which you can also just call egg chow fun), usually also features green onions or garlic chives and mung bean sprouts. It may or may not contain an assortment of other add-ins: air-dried sausage, pork slivers, bok choy, red onion, red bell pepper. Kind of like Wednesday Night Noodles, people seem to add whatever they have in the fridge!

The Mala Market’s he fen is made by rice noodle specialists in Guangdong Province. According to Baidu, jidan chao he fen originated in the Shahe area of Guangzhou around 1860, then spread throughout Guangdong and Guangxi and traveled with emigrants to Southeast Asia, where its offspring is known as char kway teow in Malaysia and Singapore, for example, and has a whole other slate of add-ins.

For this recipe I have added lap cheong and yu choy to the classic egg, scallion and bean sprout, but you do you, leaving out the sausage if you want to make it vegetarian, or subbing in different vegetables.

We eventually wore ourselves out on LGM, but fortunately, during our travels in Guizhou Province, the birthplace of Lao Gan Ma and chili crisp in general, we discovered many different versions of chili oil based on fermented soybeans, or douchi. We landed on one to use as the Mala Market’s new Guizhou Black Bean Chili Oi; we love this one both because it is different and delicious and also because, unlike LGM, it is preservative free (and gluten free!).

To be clear, chili oil is not traditionally part of a chao fun sauce, which is usually comprised of light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and sometimes douchi (as in classic beef chow fun). I have taken the liberty of replacing the oyster sauce with black bean chili oil in this recipe oil because it brings a different xian (umami) as well as mild heat and all kinds of flavor! (It’s also a good solution for vegetarians.) Either way, both recipes are sublime.

How to Make Chao He Fen With Dried Noodles

So remember when I said this was a dish I made weekly from my refrigerator and pantry? Well, my kitchen almost never includes freshly made rice noodles, since I don’t live near anyone making them and rarely have the time for that project. And as cooks in southern China know, if you don’t acquire the noodles the same day they’re made, you’re facing a challenge anyway, because once rice noodles are refrigerated, they’re basically impossible to work with. That’s when you’re better off using a dried version. If you can access fresh wide rice noodles, by all means use them. But this recipe will assume you are using dried he fen like that we import for The Mala Market, which deliver a very close, if slightly firmer and chewier, approximation of fresh noodles.

After many trials, and a few errors, I have settled on this method for prepping our he fen noodles for my beef chow fun recipe: Simply put the bundles in a large bowl and completely cover them in boiling water from the kettle. Let them sit for three minutes, gently separating them with a fork as they sit. Then drain them in a colander and rinse them under cool running water, working your fingers through them to separate any strands that are stuck together. Add a very small amount of oil to them and work that through.

If you prepped the noodles in advance of the stir-fry and they cool and stick together before you are ready to use them, simply run some water through them again, separate the noodles with your fingers and shake off most of the water before stir-frying. If they are a stuck-together mass as you add them to the wok, they will be very difficult to separate during the quick stir-fry.

How to Make the Egg for Stir-Fried Rice Noodles With Egg

There are a few approaches to making the egg component of egg chao he fen. Most cooks simply scramble the eggs in a hot wok with plenty of oil, then remove them and add them back in later. Some add the eggs to the hot wok, partially cook them, then add the noodles on top of them and cook them both together until the eggs are cooked partially in chunks and are partially coating the noodles. This is a bit of a pro move, requiring you to cook the egg and noodles without browning them too much.

I saw one southern China cook who made long strips of egg that mimicked the noodles, and I found that quite an elegant way to approach it. To do this, make a flat omelette in a wok or non-stick skillet. A large skillet actually provides a larger flat surface, and therefore larger, thinner omelette that can make strips that look like noodles. Cook until just cooked through, then flip and cook the other side, without browning. It’s ok if it cracks a bit during this flipping maneuver. Remove the omelette, let it cool slightly, roll it into a log and use a quite sharp knife to cut it into 1/8-inch strips.

But if you’re in a hurry? Simply scramble the eggs and be done with it!

Stir-Frying Egg Chow Fun

Remember to have all your ingredients prepped and ready to go before you start stir-frying. It’s especially important with this dish to move quickly, so the noodles do not get overcooked and fall apart.

For more fun noodle recipes, check out Taylor’s traditional Cantonese Beef Chow Fun (Ft. Dried Ho Fun Noodles), Georgia’s Yunnan Cold Rice Noodle Salad (Liangban Mixian, 凉拌米线,) or Kathy’s Chinese Sausage and Fermented Tofu Carbonara.