Zha Jiang Mian or Ja Jiang Myeon in Korean, is a dish that originated from northern china (Wikipedia, 2010). It consists of thick wheat noodles topped with a mixture of minced pork and fermented soy bean paste (Wikipedia, 2010). I honestly have not tried Zha Jiang Mian before other than the samples I've had from the Asian grocery store but I've heard so much about it since I've been making numerous visits to different Korean restaurants around the DFW area.
This dish is actually reminiscent of what I've had growing up; noodles with minced meat. It's no wonder I got attracted to it when I found out what it consisted of. Since I decided to attempt this dish, I started perusing many recipes I found online. Apparently there are many types of versions depending on where it's from. For instance, in Beijing they use a yellow soybean paste with soy sauce to make their sauce (wikipedia, 2010) and in Tian Jin they use sweet bean sauce, hoi sin sauce or black bean sauce. To find a middle ground, I decided to use a mixture of blackbean paste and sweet bean sauce for my Jiang (sauce).
I did not manage to find a suitable brand for the fermented black bean paste so I just got this black bean in soybean oil bottle & dumped it into the food processor with the sweet bean sauce to make a paste
Overall this was such a simple and tasty dish! The sweet bean sauce really balances out the saltiness from the black bean sauce.
For those of you not familiar with this dish, just think spaghetti with meat sauce.
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
Wheat noodles enough for 6 people
Sesame oil for noodles
1 pound ground pork
1 cup black bean paste
1/2 cup sweet bean sauce
1 medium sized onion diced
1 whole cucumber diced
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp oil
Spring onions for garnishing
Directions:
1. Cook noodles according to the directions on the packet. When noodles are cooked, drain it with cold water and add some sesame oil mix in some sesame oil
2. Mix sweet bean sauce with black bean paste and set aside
2. Heat oil in pan
3. Add onions and stir fry till translucent
4. Add ground pork and stir till it's half cooked
5. Pour in the bean paste from step 2
6. On medium heat, mix the paste into the ground pork
7. Add in cucumbers. Cover and cook on medium heat till pork is cooked occasionally stirring it
8. Depending on how thick or watery you want it, you may leave the pan uncovered or covered
9. Throw in the sugar and stir it in 1 minute before you turn off the stove
10. Serve with noodles and garnish with spring onions
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