Or vegetarian if you DO use egg-based noodles

Something about that first sentence is deeply relatable.

This dish is better with fresh thin Chinese straight cut noodles like the one he showed in the video as they have a unique texture

Would love to see a recipe on how to prepare Sichuan cold noodles. I tried this recipe kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ptJ6isZ9qN_DfJc.html But I am eager to see yours..because your recipes are at a totally different level. Thanks for sharing..your gift

Apologies from you wonderful people are never needed.

Cheers, glad you enjoyed it!

Thx for your kind words! :)

Cheers, welcome and thanks for the kind words! We're big fans of the narrative style for recipe videos - the best way too keep the emphasis on the food but still be able to communicate what's going on IMO. Also conveniently the easiest way for total amateurs like us to film a food video :)

Cheers, thanks for the kind words! This dish was Steph cooking, but you'll find me behind the wok in a few :) I would like to emphasize though that there's absolutely zero way that I'd be able to do this alone... Steph's equally if not moreso the brains behind this operation lol. And yeah, this version's awesome. I know we were sort of playing footsie with contradicting the whole premise behind this video (supposed to be a dirt easy dish), but we were trying a few different things and we decided that we *had* to go for the most delicious one ;)

Steph made this one :) But yeah, it was quite tasty!

Chinese Cooking Demystified oh true!! I’m so used to seeing you make dishes I didn’t realize haha! Awesome nonetheless

Haha our running count is Steph 21.5, Chris - 12.5, Guest cook Adam - 2, Guest cook Dawei - 1

Oh wow!!! I guess I never noticed because you're usually narrating!! Well, good job to all of you, Steph, Chris, Adam and Dawei!! ^_^ I love all your videos, and have seriously impressed some of my friends with your recipes! (Though I don't take the credit of course ;p)

Haha scallion oil is used in a handful of Dim Sum dishes, but I usually tell people to use up the scallion oil by making Congyou Banmian ;)

Cheers, welcome!

THANK. YOU. LOL~

It's on the list. :)

Haha yeah, my (Chris) family's from Pennsylvania... they've been getting some crazy cold weather too. Here is Shenzhen, it's unseasonably warm... so like perfect weather. 23 degrees Celsius, sunny, light breeze. Of course, the flip side is that our summers are stupid hot and muggy lol Happy 2018!

Chinese Cooking Demystified Then you DO understand Chris, 😂! It's so cold our antifreeze in the trunk of our car~froze! Brrrrrrrrrrrr Looking forward to a new year of delicious videos. Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁

Yep, we've been meaning to get to that :)

That'd be good too. I've seen some friends from Shanghai tossing spices in the oil.

Star anise is evil

We always keep a pack of deep fried garlic for our Thai food too :)

Yep, when it comes to Sichuan noodle dishes, we're between Zhajiangmian and Liangmian for the next one :)

Chinese Cooking Demystified Awesome! Looking forward to it!

Just water should do the trick. Maybe optionally add a touch of julienned ginger and/or stock (or water + stock concentrate) as well?

It is indeed a great late night snack~

maybe dried shiitake mushrooms?

Mushrooms

Scallion oil doesn't really have a theoretical limit - we'd usually respond 'three months in the fridge', but it's never really lasted long enough in our house to test the upper limit :) As for the other ingredients... hmm... a couple days? As some of the other commenters said, if you're looking for something quick and easy you could always also just skip the shrimp topping!

Thank you for your answers! I love your channel. For future episode, Zhajiangmian recipe would be awesome!

I'd do corn oil instead of peanut if you can't use peanut.

I'd probably go for sunflower oil, but in the end it doesn't matter too much - Canola's fine. Peanut oil's nice just because it has a nice fragrance and a high smoke point :)

Faint of Hearts Are you able to use grapeseed oil? It is a great carrier of flavours because it has virtually no detectable taste, it is much cheaper now and, like peanut oil, has a high smoking point. I've used it exclusively for about 7 years now. I love it. Hope that helps! ☺ Also, if I may be so bold, do you react to peanut oil if it's just being used in a room you're in? My daughter runs a daycare and she can't even have any form of peanuts including oil, not even to cook with, because just the miniscule amount dispersed in the air can send one of her charges into anaphylaxis. That same daughter was allergic to milk, wheat and eggs (not anaphylactic to them though)~so understands it can be deadly. Just curious. You don't have to answer. Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁

I think canola or rapeseed or an neutral oil that is good for frying will do.

Whatever you do, do not grab a bottle of sesame oil thinking it's basically the same thing because it smells like peanut butter. Trust me, there will be problems.

rhijulbec1 I am fortunate in that my allergy is mild. I can be near and smell it, but touching the source induces hives. I never had or used an epipen. To everyone else, thanks for the suggestions! I think I'll try grapeseed oil. Appreciated!

Oh man, we've gotten so many requests for that. Maybe we'll even try to give it a go before CNY (if not, soon thereafter). Tasty dish for sure, we were holding off because we didn't wanna do it too close to Dan Dan noodles.

Chinese Cooking Demystified Thank you for the reply. Very much look forward to your video!!

It’ll keep for months in the fridge but the fragrance will dissipate over time

I don't keep it the oil the fridge and can keep the oil for about 2-3 weeks at room temp (i.e. 30-35 degrees celsius). The fried onion (without the oil) can be kept for 2 months.

I guess what he meant is go to and easy dish with less ingredients

Sure, totally. We'd use dried shiitake mushrooms tough.

I replaced the dried shrimp with fried small onion (thinly sliced, i.e. 1-1.5mm).

@@2030chinna Oh nice. I like fried onion. I'll try it that way too

Hmm, jar it up, keep it clean, make sure you don't get any water or other stuff in it, then at least three months.

awesome, thanks

I´m pretty sure it would last quite a bit longer. I would give it a year or so.

Yeah, I think it can last longer but I'm always a bit paranoid when it comes to giving shelf life suggstions to people.

well I made mine probably like 5 months ago and tried this recipe yesterday. Still not sick but I'm gonna have to try again because this recipe is so good... If I get sick itll be worth it lol

Yes, Yes, Yes. Fried it until golden brown. I used chopped garlic (cubes about 0.3-0.5mm in diameter) and sliced (1-1.5mm) shallots. Drain the oil and keep the garlic and shallot from the oil. This way the garlic and shallot will stay crispy. Yummy! Mix it with noodles, soya sauce, the 'special' oil and crispy bits of garlic and shallots.

Yeah definitely something we need to get to :) After the Chinese New Year we're planning on a 'Chinese Stocks 101 video'

Yeah man this dish was made to be improvised. In hindsight I think we maybe shouldn't have made it this... fancied up. We were really wracking our brains before putting out the video, wondering which version we should put out. I remember thinking "let's just go with the most delicious one", but I think the essence here's that it can kinda be an easy and delicious thing.

Yeah we totally gotta do a few veg dishes - I know a number of people came here through stir-fried vegetables so we definitely need to do a few more! We're not vegetarians so unfortunately don't eat a lot of Buddhist food (so it'd be tough to replicate), but we're looking at doing more with mushrooms and tofu :) Next week's Sichuan 'mouth watering chicken' though, so it'd have to wait :/

Oh! Almost forgot. You can *totally* make this one vegetarian. Replace the 16 dried shrimp with 3 dried shiitake mushrooms, and steam for 20 minutes instead of 10. Continue as is. It'll be just as tasty!

ta

There's no such thing as Buddhist food. Buddhism is a religion - it does not dictate what one can or can't eat.

@@MTMF.london what pray tell is shojin ryori or zhāi cài if not Buddhist food or rather food compliant with Buddhist precepts?

We store ours in the fridge :)

Botulism is more of a risk if you're storing (1) at room temperature or (2) for extremely long periods of time. Here we're frying the scallions and onions for a lengthy period of time, removing them from the oil, then jarring it and keeping in the fridge. I don't know enough about the Botulism parasite to confirm, but it seems extremely unlikely that it'd grow in such an environment. Regardless, people in theYangtze River Delta sure ain't dropping like flies :) If you're concerned, you could heat the oil for a bit after taking out the scallions to ensure that any extra moisture's removed and then put in a well sterilized jar.. From there, you could try to finish up the oil within a month or so (pretty easy to do tbh). I think that'd be kinda overkill, but I certainly could appreciate the fear.

To season.

Yeah... I think the traditional Cantonese Style Soy Sauce Fried Noodle and Lo Mein, the West China style Sesame Noodle (or any kind of Xian Toss Noodles) fit the requests a little better. Either way, this looks really good!

Honestly it's probably just from white balancing. The camera is set to pick up the darker colors of the balcony, so the background gets to be washed out. If the background looked normal, the foreground would be way too dim and hard to see.

We invested in a little curtain to hang on our balcony for filming. We found that the lighting was WAY too harsh without it! And I dunno, this isn't really that complicated, yeah? Takes about 20 minutes start to finish, even with the shrimp topping. Doesn't feel like much more work than Spaghetti Aglio e olio ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, obviously the topping could also be skipped and that liquid replace with stock or just water (plus oyster sauce, or plus MSG, or plus stock concentrate). We were playing around with this dish though when testing and asked ourselves if we should do an easier version or this still-really-easy-but-tastier-version. We opted for the latter :)

How so?

was just being polite. this just looks too fusion-y to be called shanghai-style. no offense. better call it congyou dandanmian...

But I learnt this from an old Shanghai chef~ Just out of curiosity, what would your ideal version be like? -Stephanie

Well, everywhere else in Shanghai?

So I think your objection's the presentation? Just mix it up man

Literally your own skin produces oils.

SO what? And your digestive tract produces shit. Now go review the published research of folks like R. Vogel, L. Rudel, Ong, and the clinical research of folks like Caldwell Esselstyn, T. Colin Campbell, John McDougall and the published medical research summaries at NutritionFacts.org. Add that to the FACT that since 1980, where before in China meat and oil was both expensive and scarce, the rate of diabetes caused by adding animal protein to refined rice has seen one of the lowest rates of diabetes grow to one of the highest in the world with more than 50% of the population being diagnosed as pre-diabetic. Chinese food is great IT, you prepare it as it WAS, prior to the glut of meat where their consumption is now ~2.5 times that of the US and where everything now literally swims in oil. But then, how would I know, as I have only lived 'there' for the past six years. Oh, and here are a few of the results of a few studies on fats and oils focused primarily on the laughably labeled heart healthy olive oil!: Dietary Monounsat.Fatty Acids Promote Aortic Atherosclerosis in LDL Receptor - Null, Human ApoB100 -Overexpressing Transgenic Mice - L.Rudel et al. "The reduction in aortic atherosclerosis was not found when either cis or trans monounsaturated fatty acids were fed....Rather, just as much atherosclerosis was seen when cis monounsaturated fat diets were fed as when saturated fat was fed,..& significantly more atherosclerosis was seen when the trans monounsaturated fatty acids were fed." Hepatic Origin of Cholesteryl Oleate in Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis in African Green Monkeys…Enrichment by Dietary Monounsaturated Fat, L. Rudel, “the amount of coronary artery atherosclerosis was similar in the monounsaturated and saturated fat groups, in spite of the significantly improved LDL cholesterol concentration and LDL/HDL cholesterol ratio” Compared with dietary monounsaturated and saturated fat, polyunsaturated fat protects African green monkeys from coronary artery atherosclerosis, Rudel L.. “In sum, the monkeys fed monounsaturated fat developed equivalent amounts of coronary artery atherosclerosis as those fed saturated fat, but monkeys fed polyunsaturated fat developed slightly less.” The postprandial effect of components of the Mediterranean diet on endothelial function, R. Vogel MD, et al. “Conclusions: In terms of their effects on postprandial endothelial function, the beneficial components of the Mediterranean & Lyon Diet Heart Study diets appear to be the antioxidant-rich foods-vegetables, fruits, & their derivatives such as vinegar-NOT olive oil. Dietary fruits, vegetables, & their products appear to provide some protection against the direct impairment in endothelial function produced by high-fat foods, including olive oil.” Oh.....

Jesus shut the fuck up, nobody cares.

Optimud OL You poor dumbfuck. The fact is that many of us who Do routinely eat REAL Chinese food - IN CHINA - DO care about the healthfulness of the food - unlike willfully ignorant asshats like yourself confused by objective evidence based fact. Now, go surprise your mommy by cleaning up your room without her having to tell you to do so.

I think you can always replace the groundnut oil with groundnut water. 1. Buy 750 grams of groundnuts and remove groundnut from the shell. 2. Rinse groundnut. 3. Boil until the water (2.5 litres) is VERY HOT (about 208-210 Fahrenheit). 4. Put the groundnuts into the pot of very hot boiling water. 5. Boil in high heat for 5 minutes. Add your scallion etc. 6. Now reduce the heat and let the content to simmer, keeping it at 93-95 degree Celsius. 7. Continue for 4 hours. 8. Stop the boiling and turn off the stove. 9. Let it cool. 10. You should now have about 750 grams of groundnut water. 11. If not, boil it in high heat till you have about 750 grams of groundnut water (after removing the your nuts). 12. Now you have your groundnut water. 13. Cook your noodle and drain it. 14. Get your plate. 15. Mix your noodle with the groundnut water. 16. Add soya sauce, oyster sauce etc... 17. Enjoy! 18. You did use much oil and it still tastes GOOD!!!

Its supposed to taste good