A fried carp lies on a long oval white platter under a jujube-red sweet-and-sour sauce, with a nest of hair-fine golden fried noodles over its body and a pair of wooden chopsticks beside the plate.
The regional cooking of Henan in the Central Plains, aiming at a balance of the five flavours.
Carp with crispy noodles is a traditional fish dish of the Kaifeng area in Henan: Yellow River carp is fried, glazed with sweet-and-sour sauce and covered with fine noodles fried golden. Diners eat the fish before the noodles. It appears among 10 well-known Henan dishes in a 2025 report. No dated record of the dish itself was found; a 2022 article cites the Ming-era Rumeng Lu on Kaifeng people inviting guests to dragon-beard noodles on the second day of the second month, but that passage concerns noodles and does not mention this dish.
What
Carp with crispy noodles is a traditional fish dish of Kaifeng in Henan. Yellow River carp is fried and glazed with a jujube-red sweet-and-sour sauce, then covered with hair-fine noodles made from pulled dough and fried crisp (the noodles are called beimian, or dragon-beard noodles). Diners eat the soft fish before the crisp noodles.1,2,3,5,6
When
The dish combines sweet-and-sour fried fish with fried dragon-beard noodles, as described in a 2017 program. A 2022 article cites the Ming-era Rumeng Lu on Kaifeng people inviting guests to dragon-beard noodles on the second day of the second month, but the passage names only noodles, not this dish, and the article gives no author or date for the book; no dated text about the dish was found, and the Cixi tale below is not a dated record.2,3,4,5
Where
Kaifeng, Henan. A 2017 program describes using Yellow River carp from the Zhengzhou and Kaifeng stretch.2,3
How
The fish is scored on both sides and fried, then finished in a sauce of clear stock, sugar, vinegar and cooking wine, thickened with starch and topped with hot oil for shine. The noodles are pulled from alkaline dough to hair thinness, fried to a persimmon yellow, and laid over the fish just before serving. Eat while hot.2,6
Why
The dish balances sweet and sour. A 2025 report describes carp as a common Lunar New Year's Eve dish: its name sounds like “profit and remainder,” suggesting abundance. The fish is eaten before the noodles.1
Impact and influence
It appears among 10 well-known Henan dishes in a 2025 report. No heritage or geographical indication listing specifically for this dish was found in the sources.1,2,3,4,5,6
Legend has it that the Empress Dowager Cixi stopped in Kaifeng on a journey and was served sweet-and-sour fried fish with fried noodles. Seeing the fish lying still, she joked that it was asleep and needed a quilt, and the cooks laid the noodles over it. Some versions give a particular year, but no document that records the event was found, so no year is written here.
Told in: Told in Kaifeng, and found in a 2017 Henan TV program, a 2012 Shenzhen local guide entry and a 2026 essay. The versions differ in detail, and no document that records the event was found.
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
The traditional way is to pull an alkaline dough to hair thinness, which is hard at home, so my simpler way is to use dried fine noodles, break them short and fry them crisp. After frying, the fish goes into the sweet-and-sour sauce to cook through for certain. The amounts and timings are my own choices at home, and I use a plain vegetable oil rather than peanut oil.
Ingredients
Farmed carp 1 fish, about 500 g, scaled and gutted at the fish counter
Dried fine wheat noodles 100 g
Vegetable oil about 800 ml for frying the fish and noodles, plus 2 tablespoons for finishing the sauce
Salt 3 g, for marinating the fish
Shaoxing wine 25 ml in all: 15 ml for the fish, 10 ml in the sauce
Ginger 4 slices, plus 1 teaspoon minced
Scallion 2 stalks, half in sections for the fish, half minced
Clear stock or water 200 ml
Sugar 60 g
Black or rice vinegar 60 ml
Starch slurry 10 g starch stirred into 30 ml water
Steps
Score the fish diagonally several times on each side, down almost to the bone. Rub with the salt, pour on 15 ml of wine, add the ginger slices and scallion sections, and marinate for 15 minutes. Take it out and pat it dry.
Pour about 800 ml of oil into a wok and heat it over medium heat. Slide the dried fish in gently along the side of the wok so the oil does not spatter, and fry it until both sides are golden and set, about 3 to 4 minutes a side, then lift it out to drain. The oil should come at least halfway up the fish, so turn it over once.
Break the noodles into pieces about 10 cm long. Keep enough oil in the wok to fry them in, heat it over medium heat, and fry the noodles in small batches until persimmon yellow, which takes well under a minute. Drain them.
In a wide pan, combine the stock, sugar, vinegar, the remaining 10 ml of wine, and the minced ginger and scallion, and bring to the boil. Put the fish in, cover, and cook over low heat for about 3 minutes, turning it once and spooning sauce over it.
Test the thickest part of the fish with a chopstick: the flesh should be opaque and come away from the bone easily, otherwise cook another minute. Lift the fish carefully onto a plate. Stir the starch slurry into the sauce in two additions until thick, then add 2 tablespoons of hot oil for gloss.
Pour the sauce over the fish. Pile the fried noodles on top just before serving, take it to the table at once, and ask everyone to eat the fish before the noodles.
Tips
I put the fried noodles on only when everyone is seated; I find they lose their crunch if they sit.
Cooks use different sugar and vinegar ratios. I make it with the amounts above, taste, and adjust a little at a time: a bit more sugar if it is too sour, a bit more vinegar if it is too sweet.
