hello! hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to actually decent vegetarian dishes with a play on a classic noodle dish from Chinese Sichuan cuisine, which is the sesame noodle, or dan dan mian. For those unfamiliar, a dan dan mian is a savory and spicy noodle dish that iconically uses (as you might guess), sesame paste as its core element to create its thick and creamy sauce base. More Americanized versions of this dish (including the ground pork version that we did a few months back) may also see the use of peanut butter in lieu of sesame paste, or, failing that, tahini.
Today, I thought it might be fun to take our best shot at creating a COLD version of this dish, which is essentially the same thing, but served with chilled noodles, making it great for picnics, meal preps, hot days, and basically any other scenario that you can imagine eating a pasta salad. Finally rounding this out because after all, I did promise some actually decent vegetarian dishes, we’ll be doing a wok seared crispy tofu today that I like to top with a bit of chili oil to make for a bowl of noodles that outdoes every pasta salad I’ve ever had. Hope you try it.
Serves 2-3
INGREDIENTS
1 lb flat egg noodles
4 cloves garlic
1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger
3 green onions
1 lb firm tofu
INGREDIENTS (sauce)
4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)
1 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp sesame paste
1 tbsp doubanjiang
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp chili crisp oil
1 tbsp black bean sauce
INGREDIENTS (marinade)
4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)
2 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp white pepper
PREP
CRUSH and mince 4 cloves of garlic, set aside
MINCE ginger, set aside
SEPARATE the whites and greens of the green onions, then slice thinly, set aside
LARGE DICE the tofu, then combine with marinade ingredients and set aside
COMBINE all sauce ingredients, set aside
ON THE STOVE
HEAT a wok as hot as possible, then add 4 tbsp peanut oil and long yao
ADD the tofu to the wok and let sear for 2.5 minutes undisturbed, then toss and saute for an additional 1 minute
BOIL a pot of water, add the egg noodles and boil for 1.5 minutes, then remove and immediately blanch in cold water until the noodles are cold
ADD the noodles with the sauce ingredients and toss to combine
FINISH with tofu, greens of green onions, and chili oil