Garlic Dipping Sauce Noodles (蒜蘸面)

A big flat noodle classic from the Chinese Northwest, this time dipped in a enticingly red chili garlic dipping sauce.

This is suanzhanmian (蒜蘸面), garlic dipping sauce noodles, and it's this classic homecooking dish from China's northwest. It belongs to a category of noodle dishes predictably called dipping sauce noodles… these dishes'll take some fresh noodles, cook them together with a bit of veg, and serve in this big basin of water – cool in summer, hot in winter.

To eat, what you do then is just take your noodles, and then dip them in whatever dipping sauce you happened to whip up – stewed tomato and egg, mala chili, and chili garlic likely being the ones that you see around the most. And with garlic in its name, this garlic dipping sauce is… not pussyfooting around with the garlic quantity. We’ll be using one head's worth of garlic for the sauce, making sure the maximumly garlicky flavor for the noodle.

Chili Garlic Dipping Sauce:

• Garlic, one head, ~60g worth of cloves

• Salt, ½ tsp

• Five spice powder (五香粉), ½ tsp

• Kashmiri Chilli Powder or Korean Chili Powder or Northwest style chili powder (秦椒), 2 tbsp

• Oil, ½ cup. We used Sichuan caiziyou - virgin rapeseed oil - though peanut/flex seed would also work great... or really, anything tasty

• Aromatics to fry in the oil:

  Onion, ~¼ medium. Finely sliced

  Ginger, ~1 inch. Smashed

• To season the dip:

  Soy sauce (生抽), 1.5 tbsp

  Dark Chinese vinegar (陈醋/镇江香醋), 1.5 tbsp

  Sugar, ¼ tsp

  MSG (味精), ⅛ tsp

Process:

Pound one head of garlic (~60g worth of cloves) in a mortar together with ½ tsp salt. Do not make it overly pasty. In a bowl, combine the garlic with ½ tsp five spice powder and 2 tbsp Kashmiri Chilli Powder (or Korean Chili Powder/Northwest style chili powder).

Over a medium flame, fry ¼ medium onion (finely sliced) and ~1 inch ginger (smashed) in ½ cup oil until the onions turn golden brown. Remove the onion and ginger.

Over a high flame, heat up the oil until it begins to smoke, ~190C. Pour into the bowl with the garlic and spices. Give a quick mix, and cover to let it steep, ~10 minutes.

Add the rest of the seasoning of 1.5 tbsp soy sauce, 1.5 tbsp dark Chinese vinegar, ¼ tsp sugar, and ⅛ tsp MSG.

Mix well and reserve the mixture.

Mianpian Noodle Sheets:

Makes 2-4 servings (two hungry people, or up to four in the context of a larger meal).

• AP Flour (中筋面粉), 400g.

• Salt, 1 tsp.

• Water, 184g.

Process:

Mix 400g AP Flour and 1 tsp salt, then slowly drizzle in 184g water bit by bit, mixing it with a chopstick to form small bits.

Press it all together, knead for ~1 minute. Cover and rest for ~20 minutes. Then knead for 10-15 minutes until smooth (or alternatively, use a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment – speed 3 – for ten minutes). Cover and rest for ~20-30 minutes.

To make the noodles, first divide the dough into four pieces for easier handling. Roll out the dough into a 1mm thick sheet as we showed at 4:04 in the video.

To make mianpian noodle sheets, roll up the dough along the pin again, slice on the top of the rolling pin, then cut into ~3cm wide sheets. Alternatively, if you want something longer, simply slice your whole sheet into ~3cm wide noodles. Thoroughly flour the noodles as you work.

Add the noodles to a big pot of boiling water. Allow the water to get back up to a boil, then boil for one minute. Add your vegetable of choice. Taste to ensure your noodles are done – they should be floating. Transfer over to a basin of water – hot in the winter, cool in the summer.

Bring the bowl of noodle and water to the table, serve alongside with the dipping sauce.