MUZIChinese Matrix
Northwestern Cuisine · FFET10227
Wide wheat noodles topped with garlic, scallion and chili powder, sizzled with hot oil and finished with vinegar and soy sauce.
A deep white porcelain bowl holds pale wide wheat noodles coated in glossy red chili oil sauce, pale green baby bok choy, minced garlic and chopped scallion, with a pair of wooden chopsticks resting beside the bowl.
The regional cooking of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai, with wheat foods and mutton at its core.
Youpo mian is a Shaanxi specialty: wide noodles are boiled and put in a bowl, topped with garlic, scallion and chili powder, splashed with hot oil, and finished with vinegar and soy sauce. The noodles may be pulled or torn, and combination versions include extra toppings. No dated text was found for this entry, and the available material does not establish its city of origin.
Youpo mian is a bowl of boiled wide noodles topped with garlic, scallion and chili powder, splashed with oil heated until it smokes, and seasoned with vinegar and soy sauce. The noodles may be hand-pulled or hand-torn.1,2,3,5
Youpo mian is a Shaanxi specialty; the available material does not establish its city of origin.1,2
The dough is kneaded and rested, pulled into wide strips or torn, boiled and put in a bowl; chili powder, garlic and scallion go on top, hot oil is poured over, and vinegar and soy sauce finish it. A Sichuan food writer's version uses hand-pulled wide noodles; a US adaptation uses dried wide noodles and baby bok choy. Pour the oil when it has just begun to smoke, so that it sizzles.1,2,3,4,5
The available material does not explain the reason for the dish. Oil just beginning to smoke makes the garlic, scallion and chili flakes sizzle when poured over them.1,2,3,4,5
The same hot-oil finish is used on other noodles: a Sichuan food writer's hand-pulled wide noodles go by another name and also finish with a spoonful of hot oil. A US adaptation of youpo mian uses dried wide noodles and baby bok choy.3,4
Legend has it that a chef once spilled hot oil over a bowl of cooked noodles; instead of throwing it away he tossed it with seasonings, tasted it and found it good. The tale appears in an English-language travel article, which states it vaguely and names neither the chef nor the place.
Told in: Told in an English-language travel article that hedges it and gives no source.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is my simplified home version of youpo mian, with dried wide noodles instead of hand-pulled ones and a couple of baby bok choy. The garlic, scallion, soy sauce and vinegar follow the former recipe, a hand-pulled wide-noodle recipe by a writer on Sichuan food that goes by a different noodle name but ends with the same spoonful of hot oil. The noodles and the oil follow the latter recipe, about 85 g of dried noodles and 2 tablespoons of oil per person; that one is a US newspaper adaptation with dried wide noodles and bok choy. I use less chili powder than the former recipe, and the cooking time and my way of judging the oil are my own choices at home.
Allergens: wheat, soy
