Dan Dan Mian

October 17, 2012

Cindy spotted this recipe on Steph's blog and knew straight away it was for me - tempeh, chilli oil, noodles - this is right up my alley. We decided to cook it almost immediately, taking full advantage of our breakfast with Steph to get some last minute tips on the best noodles and chilli oil options. We made a few small changes - Cindy's pretty down on dried shitake mushrooms, so we just subbed them for a handful of diced button mushies, and we simplified the condiment mix a bit to suit our stocks. It was brilliant - the chilli oil and Sichuan peppers bringing burn and tingle to the meaty, salty dish. It's more or less a noodley soup and eating it is a combo of fork, spoon and messiness. This makes about three serves - enough for me to get lunch leftovers anyway.

Dan Dan Mian

(adapted from this recipe on vegan about town)

sauce

1-2 teaspoons ground Sichuan peppers

2 tablespoons chilli oil (something like this)

2 cups of mushroom stock

2 tablespoons tamari

1 clove minced garlic

1/2 tablespoon tahini (heaped)

1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons sesame oil

200g tempeh, chopped into 1 cm cubes

6  button mushrooms, chopped into 1 cm cubes

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1-2 tablespoons mirin

3 tablespoons tamari

3 green onions, chopped (white and green parts separately)

1 carrot, grated

peanut oil

300g noodles (we used vacuum packed yellow noodles), boiled for a couple of minutes

Combine all the sauce ingredients thoroughly and set aside.

In a frying pan, heat up the oil and stir fry the garlic and ginger with the white bits of the spring onions. After a couple of minutes, throw in the tempeh, carrot and mushrooms and keep stir-frying, for about 5 minutes until things start to brown up. 

Pour in the tamari and stir-fry for another minute or two. Add the mirin and stir-fy until it cooks off. 

Serve in layers: noodles on the bottom of a bowl, pour over a cup or so of sauce and layer the stir-fry mush on top. Garnish with the green parts of the spring onions and eat, sweating profusely.