Aug 6, 2009

Zha Jian Mien! how's my pin yin?


last week, i had a craving for zha jian mien. so i drove to milpitas and got some takeout and it sort of satisfied the craving.
except the noodles were dripping in oil. and it felt like a rock in my stomach.
then, the next day, userealbutter posted her own zha jian mien. and i thought, why can't i just make my own?
well, the immediate answers were:
1. you don't have the ingredients
2. it's so cheap to buy in milpitas
3. you've never made it before
but really, they're just lame excuses.
1. i can BUY the ingredients, duh
2. even if it's cheap, it's still not good
3. it's never stopped me before!

note: i used ground turkey because the ground pork at the store looked too fatty. turkey's not traditional, i know, but my sister suggested it and my mom agreed, so i went with it.

cook the turkey or pork in the pan with some minced garlic. some recipes call for minced ginger too. i don't like ginger and so there's none in mine. plus, my mom didn't say to put in ginger. so there.
here's the very light colored pork (aka. turkey).


add all the sauces (soy sauce, hot chili garlic sauce, bean sauce, hoisin sauce) and the tofu. not plain tofu. marinated tofu. or do fu gan (there's that weird pinyin again).


zha jian mien. mien is chinese for noodles. so take this meat sauce and spoon it over some noodles. since this is a shanghainese dish, use shanghainese noodles. just a note: in my asian grocery store, shanghainese noodles came in three noodles size/shapes. i chose the medium one. not too skinny, not too thick.
add some julienned cucumber and some bean sprouts for some cool, crunchy goodness.

mmmm, craving satisfied.


oh boy, this is going to be hard . . . i did not measure

Zha Jian Mien
1 tsp canola oil
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 lb ground pork (traditional) or turkey (healthy version)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp hot chilic garlic sauce
2 tbsp bean sauce
3 tbsp hoisin sauce
1/4 to 1/3 cup diced do fu gan (marinated tofu)
shanghainese noodles (enough for two)
handful julienned cucumber
handful bean sprouts

start pot of water for noodles.
heat oil in pan. when heated, toss in garlic and ground meat. brown the meat.
add noodles to water.
add sauces and do fu gan to meat. stir until combined.
drain noodles. top noodles with meat sauce, cucumber and sprouts. dig in!


3 comments:

  1. Yum!! This looks great!!! Thanks for visiting my blog. -Tien :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. nice attempt! i like the turkey idea, i suggested it to mom once

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  3. i'm super impressed! this looks so good (and is probably so much healthier...)

    ReplyDelete