zhang.dianli, 7 months ago

I had a blood sugar crash today, so my #lunch had to be a bit of a #ComplexCarb bomb. What better way to do that than to have #Wuhan's most famous #StreetFood: 热干面 ("hot dry noodles"). (Note: famous, not best! That honour falls to 豆皮 in my considered opinion!)

This dish is a relatively recent innovation and consists of extruded (not cut or pulled) #alkaline #noodles (this gives it a very different mouthfeel and a completely different reaction to sauces used on it) which have been briefly cooked, ideally, in a complex chicken broth, pulled from the water, drizzled with sesame oil, then rapidly cooled to room temperature. The noodles are then, at the time of serving, dipped briefly into the broth again to heat them up before being dumped in the bottom of a bowl, with sesame sauce and soy sauce (only a tiny amount!) thrown on top before garnishment. (Most restaurants these days put out the garnishes in a buffet so you can decide what you want in your noodles.)

Before eating you mix the noodles, the sauce, and the garnishes together and eat with great delight. (The final three words are mandatory!)

My garnishes of choice today included: marinated seaweed, chili oil, pickled daikon radish, coriander leaves, and the omnipresent green onion.

Post-mixed noodles showing what the final product is like before eating.