Beijing Zhajiangmian.

Here is a special post i'm sharing with everybody today which is close to my heart. Cooking is something quite rare in my life, not because I don't have time for it, but because my lifestyle has been habitualised to eating out every single day, every single meal. You might think this is completely stupid for financial reasons but you will be surprised to find that most people in China in the middle class also eat out very often.

Why is that you might ask? Well it's because the food and service industry in China is very competitive and there are many options to choose from. Cuisines from all over the country often make their way to your city in some form or another, and even if they aren't completely as authentic as the dishes would be from their home town, they are still very good!

One example is the one below, which is the Beijing Zhajiangmian. Essentially, it is noodles with soybean paste and consists of thick wheat noodles, topped with zhajiang sauce. What is the Zhajiang sauce you might ask? Well, it is usually a mixture of stir-fried ground pork (or beef) mixed with fermented soybean paste.

There are some differences between this dish depending on where you are in China but the one in Beijing is known for using yellow soybean paste.

I use pork for this but as I mentioned earlier, ground beef can also work. You can see I've also prepared some vegetables, cucumber and radish as well as some sliced fried egg.

In the Qing dynasty, the empress dowager cixi, emperor guanxu and their cohorts had to move from Beijing to the south street in Xi'an. It was on this trip that the imperial eunuch found a zhajiangmian restaurant and introduced it to cixi and guanxu. Because of their long journey they decided to shackle up at the inn and have themselves a try of this dish.

It was told that the empress and emperor liked the dish so much that they invited the head chef from the restaurant to return with them to Beijing so that they could eat this dish regularly. This is how zhajiangmian made it's way to Beijing.

The story is quite interesting as a lot of food history is quite similar in China, so much so that it has even made it's way to places like Korea.

Some people prefer to eat it without meat, and thus vegetarian versions of the dish were also created. To substitute pork or ground beef, finely diced smoked tofu is usually used. Other alternatives also include scrambled egg or finely chopped omelette.

I remember this dish being really pivotal to me during my university days because it was cheap and quick to prepare. I'm sure many of you will have your own recipes but if not you can always take a look at mine for some ideas.