Mala Noodles - Spicy Sichuan Mala Xiao Mian (重庆麻辣小面)

This video is brought to you by A Piece de Creux, they sell quality spices from around the world to the US and Canada. If you're in the market for some Sichuan peppercorns, there's a really top-notch… you can find them online at spicetrackers.com, the link's in the description. Today, we wanted to show you how to make a great Sichuanese noodle dish, mala xiaomian. This dish is sort of like if Dan Dan noodles were in the mala flavor profile… it's got a lot of the same components but the flavor's predominantly spicy and numbing. For a xiaomian, you're looking for a good bit of soupy sauce on the bottom, but just enough that it'll still completely combine with the noodles after mixing. To make that sauce, though, you'll need some stock. If you're new to Chinese stocks, check out our stock making video up here… a simple home-style stock would work great, and you could probably even use a plain unroasted western-style stock in a pinch. So right, the ratio for that sauce is five parts stock to one part light soy sauce to two parts youlazi chili oil. Unlike Dan Dan noodles which uses hongyou, red chili oil, this guy opts for youlazi, which is convenient because it's like 100 times easier to whip up. To make it, first heat up 60 grams of oil, preferably caiziyou if you can find it. Caiziyou's a virgin rapeseed oil that's largely unavailable in the west, but Indian mustard seed oil's quite close, and peanut oil would also work just fine. Toss in two three inch sections of leek, together with one inch of smashed ginger. Fry over medium heat until they begin to turn golden brown, about three minutes, then remove. Now get the oil up to a smoking 220 centigrade and shut off the heat. Allow the oil to come down to about 170, then toss in 30 grams of chili flakes together with a half a tablespoon of sesame seeds. If you've been following this channel, this method for making youlazi chili oil's slightly different than what we've done before… you could use either approach, but this one'll make for a slightly spicier end result. Fry for about a minute with the heat off, take it out, and you've got yourself some youlazi chili oil. Now we'll be making two servings today, so besides the sauce we'll be topping these with 10 grams of peanuts, toasted over medium low heat for about three minutes till lightly blackened then pounded in a mortar and peeled. 10 grams sliced scallions. 10 grams Sichuanese yacai, toasted over very low heat for one minute… and we actually just used the residual heat from toasting the peanuts. 10 grams sesame paste, and as far as I know, tahini paste's the same thing. 10 grams untoasted sesame oil, and you could also use toasted. Two cloves of garlic, smashed then pounded in a mortar till it's about this consistency. And four grams of Sichuan peppercorns. Now, for this dish, you'll really want some quality Sichuan peppercorns. It's gotta be numbing, so if you tasted yours, your mouth should feel obviously tingly when you chewed it. But regardless, take your peppercorns, and toast over medium low heat for about a minute or two. The peppercorns'll be done once the surface is slightly blistered, and you can see tiny little oil splotches on your pan. Grind them into a powder, and your Sichuan peppercorns are good to go. So now to prep each bowl. For each bowl, add in 50 grams stock, 10 grams light soy sauce, 20 grams of your yolaza chili oil, five grams sesame paste, five grams sesame oil, half teaspoon sugar, eighth teaspoon salt, eighth teaspoon MSG, and an optional quarter teaspoon of dark Chinese vinegar. We'll also be tossing some greens in there – we used a bit of spinach, blanched for about 20 seconds, but you could really nestle in any veg you like. Now for the noodles. This was 200 grams of fresh alkaline noodles, 100 grams for each serving. You could also use Japanese ramen noodles, and dry ones would work in a pinch. Just toss those noodles into simmering water. If you're using dry noodles, just make them according to the package, but cook those till just past al dente, which was about four and a half minutes for us, then move them over to your bowl. Now top those noodles with a small handful of scallions, your toasted ya cai, the pounded peanuts, the pounded garlic, and a half tablespoon of the Sichuan peppercorn powder. With that, your mala xiaomian is done, just mix it thoroughly, and devour. So this is the mala flavor profile, so the quality of your chili and peppercorn is quite important. If you want to make your own chili flakes, what you can do is use some whole chilies, toast it, and then pulse it in your blender, and then you get yourself some chili flakes. So a big thank you to our sponsor today, spicetrackers.com. You can find the links to their Instagram and to their website down in the description box. And as always, check out the reddit link in the description box for a detailed recipe, a big thank you to everyone that's supporting us on Patreon, and of course, subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos.