Patreon only Non-Recipe: 'Sichuan-ish' Mixed Noodles

Ok, so on the Patreon Discord here, there’s one person – Neil – that no matter how hard he tries, just can’t get into Lao Gan Ma chili crisp.  And while that sort of opinion tends to elicit furrowed eyebrows and shocked Pikachu faces, I’ll be honest – Lao Gan Ma wasn’t exactly love at first bite for me, either. In my early days living out here, I just wasn’t overly into the idea of using Lao Gan Ma as a condiment. My ‘gateway drug’ of sorts was using it as an ingredient first – though these days I’m now thoroughly indoctrinated into the cult of LGM like the rest of y’all.

But right, I was telling Neil that I was wanted to share a pseudo-recipe here so that that he could use up his bottle of Lao Gan Ma in a way that I’d almost guarantee he’d like it... with a dish that we refer to as 'Sichuan-ish Lao Gan Ma mixed noodles'.

Now, there’s obviously no such dish as “Sichuan-ish Lao Gan Ma mixed noodles”. This is… a ‘fuck-it lunch’ dish. You got about 10 minutes to cook, you just wanna toss something tasty enough in your stomach. ‘Fuck-it, I want lunch’. Everybody’s got their ‘fuck-it-lunch’ staples, and this one’s mine.

The flavor here is something vaguely… Sichuan noodle. I’m sure I’m not the first person to do this exact combination – it’s basically just a mashup of the usual suspects. We’ll be mixing together:

· Lao Gan Ma (老干妈), 1 tablespoon

· Toasted Sesame oil (麻油), 1 tsp

· Light soy sauce (生抽), 1 tsp

· Dark vinegar (陈醋), 1 tsp

· Sugar, ½ tsp

So yeah. The thing with Lao Gan Ma is that it’s way more chili crisp than oil. If we want it to more closely resemble a Sichuan-style chili oil, we’ll need to help it along. And that’s where the toasted sesame oil comes in:

And of course then just mix together the rest of the ingredients:

Cool. Before boiling the noodles we’ll be blanching a bit of greens. Here I’m doing some halved baby bok choi, but I’ll often also reach for Choy Sum or Western-style Broccoli. I add ~1 tsp of oil and ~1/2 tsp salt to my boiling water – the oil gives the greens a nice sheen, and the salt’ll slightly season the noodles.

Once you’re done that, boil your noodles. Any kind of noodles are good. Here I’m using some northern-style non-alkaline noodles, but you can use whatever. I’m doing 90g dried noodles  (if you’re using fresh noodles, use ~150g worth).

Add noodles, mix it all together.

Nestle in the blanched vegetable. Fin.

Now, the thing about these noodles is that you can really just… also toss in whatever you’re feeling. Some other stuff you can add in, to varying degrees of authenticity:

· Add sesame paste

· Add hongyou chili oil – either store bought or homemade

· Add yacai

· Add sliced scallions

· Swap the toasted sesame oil for melted lard or cooked caiziyou

· Mince garlic, soak it with hot boiled water, add the garlic along with the water

· Add stock concentrate + a touch of the noodle cooking liquid

· Add chili flakes

· Add Sichuan peppercorn oil

· Add fish sauce

· Add more MSG

· Add toasted sesame seeds

· Add Sichuan peppercorn powder

Etc etc.

Within this framework, you can also explore the flavor profiles of Sichuan a bit better. Wanna make it mala? Cut the vinegar, add chili oil, chili flakes, and Sichuan peppercorn (preferably toasted and ground). Wanna give it a sort of ‘Kung Pao-esque’ flavor? Add more sugar and vinegar. Wanna do a quick and dirty MSG noodle? Cut the vinegar, add a bit of extra MSG and toss in some yacai. And so on and so forth.