MUZIChinese Matrix
Starch Noodles · FFET10120
Sichuan and Chongqing street food: chewy sweet-potato noodles in a sour, hot chili-oil broth, topped with peanuts or soybeans and cilantro.
A white porcelain bowl holds translucent gray-brown sweet-potato noodles in a glossy red hot-and-sour broth, with crushed peanuts, white sesame, cilantro, one baby bok choy and wooden chopsticks across the rim.
Strand-shaped foods made from bean or tuber starch, mostly dried before sale and soaked before eating.
Suanlafen is a street snack of Sichuan and Chongqing: sweet-potato starch noodles in a sour and hot broth of chili oil, vinegar and soy sauce, topped with fried peanuts or soybeans, pickles and cilantro. It is classified as a Chongqing snack and originates in Sichuan, but its city of origin is unspecified. The claim that it was popular by the Qing is uncited, and no dated text was found.
Suanlafen is a bowl of springy sweet-potato starch noodles in a sour, hot chili-oil broth, topped with fried peanuts or soybeans, pickles and cilantro.1,2,3,4,5
The claim that it was popular by the Qing is uncited, and no dated text was found; its inventor is unknown.3
Suanlafen is a street snack of Sichuan and Chongqing, classified as a Chongqing snack and originating in Sichuan; its city of origin is unspecified.1,3
The noodles are made from a sweet-potato starch dough pressed into boiling water, or from dried noodles soaked and then boiled. They are served in a sour and hot broth of chili oil, vinegar and soy sauce; a white pork-intestine broth is another base.1,3,4
Its signature is its sour-and-hot taste; available information gives no deeper reason.3
Suanlafen is a street snack. No heritage listing or other official designation has been found for it.1,2,3,4,5
Legend has it that after Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei swore brotherhood in the peach garden, the host served them noodles seasoned sour, hot, sweet and bitter, so that the three could face every flavor of life together, and suanlafen is said to come from this tale.
Told in: Told in Sichuan and Chongqing and found in a 2018 self-media article, which names no source; no record supports the story.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
Suanlafen is a street snack, and a bowl is quick to make at home: sweet-potato noodles, a sour-and-hot sauce, peanuts and greens. The amounts below are my own choices at home, drawn from two recipes. Cooking times for the noodles vary, so I judge by biting one to check for a hard core. This is a simplified home version: I do not make a pork-intestine broth and use ready-made chicken broth instead.
Allergens: peanut, soy, sesame, wheat
