Sauces to top Biang Biang Noodles (or whatever else)

How to top a Biang Biang Noodle! We'll show you three (well, three and a half) different toppings you can use on a Biang Biang noodle: a classic stewed pork called 'Saozi', a stewed tomato and egg, and of course the much requested cumin lamb.

Cumin lamb, it should be said, isn't a classic in the Northwest or anything... it's the house specialty of the much beloved "Xi'an Famous Foods" in the west. So to crack the nut of 'a real dish with cumin and lamb that could be used to top Biang Biang noodles' we went with an adapted version of a Xinjiang dish called "Nangbaorou".

Written recipe's over here on /r/cooking:

As always, huge thank you to Trevor James a.k.a. "The Food Ranger" for giving us free reign to raid his YouTube clips for street food footage. Super nice dude. The two videos we used were here, they're both well worth watching:

And the Mark Weins video in Flushing, who's always a good watch:

And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!

Outro Music: "Add And" by Broke For Free

ABOUT US
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Learn how to cook real deal, authentic Chinese food! We post recipes every Tuesday (unless we happen to be travelling) :)

We're Steph and Chris - a food-obsessed couple that lives in Shenzhen, China. Steph is from Guangzhou and loves cooking food from throughout China - you'll usually be watching her behind the wok. Chris is a long-term expat from America that's been living in China and loving it for the last eleven years - you'll be listening to his explanations and recipe details, and doing some cooking at times as well.

This channel is all about learning how to cook the same taste that you'd get in China. Our goal for each video is to give you a recipe that would at least get you close to what's made by some of our favorite restaurants here. Because of that, our recipes are no-holds-barred Chinese when it comes to style and ingredients - but feel free to ask for tips about adaptations and sourcing too!

[ChineseCookingDemystified]

Hey guys, a few notes:

1. We didn’t want this to be our Nangbaorou recipe. It’s an awesome dish and we do still have to do some research on the topic in order to make sure it’s the *most* proper Xinjiang style. The topping was mostly an amalgamation of Nangbaorou recipes we found online adapted to work as a noodle topping. Honestly though? I loved it.


2. Xi’an Famous Foods appears to do a version of “Hongmen Lamb” (红焖羊肉)… braising the lamb with chilis and oil. You can definitely find this as a noodle topping in the Northwest, but we haven’t seen anyone add cumin to it. We were torn between showing that and this – while we know that hongmen lamb might be closer to what a Xi’an Famous Foods fan might want, we couldn’t exactly call it ‘cumin lamb’. “Cumin lamb with no cumin” would have the potential to be a bigger controversy than when I added a small dollop of LKK oyster sauce to thicken our homemade oyster sauce lol (we still get about a comment a week under that video about that). We *could’ve* just added a dash of cumin to hongmen lamb, but then how would we know how much of a cumin kick they use? It’d be much too speculative.

3. We enjoyed the process of converting the braise into a noodle topping anyhow. If you’re looking for a place to get creative, it’s a prime target. To be honest, it’s a little surprising to me that (1) given how much people in the West love Xi’an Famous Foods/Biangbiang Noodles and (2) how much people in the West love smashing together cuisines at the speed of business and seeing what sticks that we *haven’t* seen crazy Biangbiang noodle topping mashups. Personally, I’d be much more down for a bolognaise or cheese sauce Biangbiang than goddam fried chicken on a Guabao (“Bao Bun”) or whatever. Just remember though: the oil is non-negotiable. You *need* it to make it so the noodles aren’t just stuck in one clumpy mass.

4. So yeah, if you let me… I could probably talk your ear off about tomato and egg. It’s a classic dish though and obviously a lot of people – both Chinese and Westerners – love it, so… we’re the weird ones.

5. One think to know though about stewed tomato and eggs is that restaurants use *much* more tomato than egg – it’s basically like a tomato sauce. On the top left in the Food Ranger clip at 0:20 you can see the restaurant’s stewed tomato and egg – definitely looks a bit different. That said, that particular restaurant’s quite famous and their tomato topping’s real distinctive. We do want to cover stewed tomato and egg in isolation one of these days, but we’ll definitely need to do some focused eating up in the Northwest to get a good sense of what’s out there.

That’s all I can think of for now. Quick note that I'll be a day late with the written recipe... staring at an empty word doc and feeling a bit of writer's block. Last couple vids have been real tough to edit, gunna give myself a touch of a rest today. Next week: Cantonese braised tofu.

[babloub]

"We even bonded over that on our first date" finally, some lore on Chinese Cooking demystified!

[nilsheuer]

Hi guys. I made this (biang-biang noodles, braised pork, greens and tomato-egg-fry) tonight and I must say this is an amazing set of recipes/flavor profiles. Easily one of the top 5 dishes I have ever cooked, even though I had to cut some corners (substituting spring onions for pretty much anything green in your instructions). Will hopefully make it to China for work next year and I'm really looking forward to the real thing. Proud to do my little part in this through Patreon.

[neilthecellist]

"you followed this biang biang recipe from this one awesome YouTube channel you found" 🤣

[pedropestana]

You are like one of the channels that can in a awesome yet amazing way showcase how cultural cooking is, thank u for that

[bleujeanzandcheese]

No you're 110% right to say that tomato and egg is gross when it's literally wedges of tomato suspended in a cornstarch-thickened ketchup sauce thing. Slow-cooking the tomato sauce for longer is honestly the way to go. I like to cook my tomatoes like how I would an Italian pomodoro - I start by frying some tomato paste in some oil until it gets caramelised, then I add in a can of tomatoes and cook that down with some soy. I finish the sauce with some doubanjeong, and top the whole thing with some Chinese-style scrambled eggs on some rice noodles that have been tossed in sesame oil

[aosteklov]

the best chinese cooking channel in english on youtube. thank you for all the videos and recipes

[garth]

FYI Welsh onion aka Allium fistulosum isn't indigenous to Wales or even grows there the common Allium of Wales is the leek which is also of a onion flavour but a little milder

[Carloshache]

I'm SO with you on that ubiquitous quick fried tomato and egg stir fry. The tomatoes are too quickly fried and don't break down and there's allt that skin left. This gives a "grainy" mouthfeel that does not pair well with scrambled eggs at all. Then there's the problem that China generally doesn't have that good quality of fresh tomatoes (along with most of the world).

I think egg and tomato dishes only really work during tomato season - in countries where you can get loads of those intensely red, properly matured tomatoes with that special intense natural sweetness . So bring in the Shakshouka (Tunisia), Menemen (Turkey), Huevos Rancheros (Mexico) or Uova in Purgatorio (Italy) instead please.

[Elcore]

Thanks for finally doing an egg & tomato recipe and explaining why you hadn't done one yet. But you've made me realise that I need to call in the Ayis to get my stir-fried version on, as no one on Youtube has the secret or the palate.

[evahaunted]

As a mediocre home cooker, I love these over noodles/over rice dish videos! Thank you

[jcman-lplg]

Wow... didn't even know this dish had this many different toppings. Fell in love with the noodles when I first made it following the recipe from this channel. its been on my menu 3-5 times a month and has been my latest food addiction. Definitely will try the other toppings can't wait.

[demsla]

when I was in Shanghai I had these absolutely mindblowing 芝麻酱面 that had this spicy minced pork sauce on top - which I strongly suspect is this saozi. Now I can recreate the whole dish!

[Lisa-qhqy]

This is so helpful! I'm a huge biang biang noodles fan and was looking exactly for these kinds of sauces to top my noodles <3 would be so excited if you come up with more ideas for sauces!!

[JacobinChina]

This is amazing. These videos are incredibly informative. Thank you to you both!

[machinshin]

so.. I f**king love these toppings, i'm totally gonna play around with these..

Maybe use them when making Maggi or something..
That said, thoughts/notes..

So For the egg/tomato topping.. here in the U.S. if you go to any International foods store that sells indian groceries you'll find bottles of "Ginger Garlic Paste". We use that in so many things in North Indian cooking (and some South Indian as well).



It keeps well, I've had larger GGP bottles that are still good after as much as 2 years! but keep refrigerated after opening.

[edjwise]

When you use oil in the wok around 7:43 the oil is yellow, really bright yellow. What type of oil are you using here for basic cooking?

[allmendoubt]

Cumin lamb was a dish I had in Mongolia. More like sliced rump or thigh stir fried with tons of onions and a chuck of cumin seeds, finished with chopped fresh coriander. I've copied it for home throwing in a touch of jus and butter. Sadly hard to find lamb here in zhejiang.
Have you tried 羊排？

[SpinR]

It can't be a coincidence that two of my favourite English language Chinese cooking channels upload biang biang noodle videos in the same week! Looks like I know what I'm doing this weekend!

[TY-obfz]

I think passed by the golden mall two weeks ago and was closed. Just as the famous place that made cumin lamb famous has turned over it's famous chef and the dish ( Fu Run) and isn't half the glory it used to be. For 22 dollars (US) they used to serve 6 or 7 ribs of lamb that was juicy, flavorfu and falling off the bone. Now is 2 ribs, dry and disappointing. But back to golden mall, I think it was the late Bourdain who made the mall famous as I remembered his mug on the wall in one of the stalls. Oh the biang biang noodle you forgot to mention Mandy from Souped up recipes making the noodles from scratch featured yesterday. Love the content you both bring, and dad too. Leeks !!