Spicy Zha Jiang Mian
Zha Jiang Mian has been on my bucket list of things to try for a while! I’ve only had it a few times in restaurants, but I’m always craving it. I’ve found different recipes online, but they always were too long for my tastes (I’m a lazy person as almost everyone knows). Plus, the ingredients needed just looked like things I didn’t want to get for a one-off recipe!
After 4 different tries and 2 different bean paste options, I finally landed on something that I would probably make it again. As the world’s harshest critic of myself, that is saying something! The mix that this recipe gives you is good over noodles — any egg noodles — but would also be a tasty topping over rice because, hello, GRAVY.
When looking at different recipes, the bean sauce options were really confusing to me. I decided to just stick with one kind and keep testing with it because a) I’m lazy and b) Asian grocery store sauce aisles are insane and I really didn’t want to buy 10 different sauces to find the right one. With that said, these are the two jars that I actually used to make this dish:
The other thing that makes this different from the average zha jiang mian is the amount of red pepper flakes I threw in. You can definitely adjust that part to whatever you want!
Spicy Zha Jiang Mian
Makes 2-4 servings
Ingredients:
1 lb ground pork
1½ cups diced mushroom
¼ cup ground bean sauce
1½ tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine
⅔ cup chicken stock
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger
2 tbsp red pepper flakes (this makes it pretty spicy so adjust the amount to your liking!)
1 tsp cornstarch (do 1½ tsp if you prefer a thicker sauce)
1 tbsp water
2 tsp oil
Pairings: egg noodles of your choice, julienned cucumber, diced scallions
Instructions:
In a small bowl, mix your hoisin paste, bean paste, and cooking wine.
Heat the oil up in a pan over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, add the garlic and ginger.
Once the garlic and ginger heat up and get fragrant, add the pork. Use a spatula to break the pork up into smaller, more bite-sized pieces.
Keep browning the pork and then add the diced mushrooms and red pepper flakes once you see most of the pork is cooked through. Keep sautéing until all the meat is cooked through and the mushrooms have softened up.
Add the sauce mix you made earlier into the pan. Stir until it is all incorporated with the meat and mushrooms.
Add the chicken stock. Stir and lower the heat. Keep the pan simmering to reduce the liquid a bit and get all those flavors mingling — about 5 minutes.
While your pork mix is simmering, start cooking your noodles (if you’re using them).
Mix cornstarch and water in the same bowl you had the sauce mix in (sustainability and fewer dishes to clean!). Pour the slurry into the pan and mix it all until it has thickened.
At this point, taste it! If it’s not spicy enough, add more pepper flakes. If it’s feeling a little bland, try more bean sauce. If it’s too salty, try more hoisin sauce.
In a bowl, arrange your noodles, the meat sauce, julienned cucumbers, and scallions. Stir it up and dig in!
Again, this would totally be great with rice. If you go with that option, just start cooking the rice before you start cooking the pork!
