My hometown Chongqing has infamously hot and humid summers. After a full week of 100ºF days, a bowl of sweet and spicy cold noodles was pretty much the only thing that could still get my appetite going. Cold noodles is primarily a street food. As the street food culture began to thrive in China, a group of restaurants became very popular by serving a new and informal style of Sichuan/Chongqing cuisine called “江湖菜”, which roughly translates into “the foods of the folks”. And cold noodles with shredded chicken is among the most popular dishes at such restaurants.
Sichuan cuisine is known for the masterful use of aromatics and spices to create a beautifully balanced mala flavor. Cold noodles definitely has one of the more representative Sichuan flavor blends. An ideal bowl of cold noodles should have an inviting aroma of aromatic herbs and vinegar, followed by a well-balanced taste that highlights sweet and spicy, and ends with a lingering nuttiness and tingly Sichuan peppercorn. Does that sound interesting yet?
Watch the video for all the detail, including step-by-step instructions to make the noodles yourself.
Sichuan Cold Noodles with Shredded Chicken
Equipment
- Mixer
- Pasta roller
Ingredients
Alkaline noodles (you can also buy noodles — they'll work fine)
- 200 g bread flour
- 100 g water
- 2 g salt
- 1 g soda ash ((bake baking soda at 400° F for 30 minutes))
- 4 tbsp cooking oil (to coat cooked noodles)
Accessorizing ingredients
- 300 g chicken thigh (boneless, skinless)
- ½ in ginger (sliced)
- ½ tsp sichuan peppercorn
- 100 g bean sprouts
- 1 handful cilantro (roughly chopped)
- 2 medium scallions (diced)
- 2 tbsp roasted peanuts
Noodle sauce
- 3 cloves garlic (minced)
- ¾ tsp chili oil (adjust to taste — ¾ tsp will be mildly spicy on the scale of authentic Chinese street food)
- 1¼ tsp salt
- 1¼ tsp chicken bouillon powder
- 4 tbsp white sugar
- 2½ tbsp Chinese black vinegar
- 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorn oil (can substitute ¾ tsp ground sichuan peppercorn and ½ tbsp canola oil )
- ¾ tbsp sesame oil
- ¾ tbsp light soy sauce
- ¾ tbsp rapeseed oil (can substitute canola oil )
Instructions
Make the noodles (unless purchasing them)
- Mix the bread flour, salt, and soda ash
- Add water and mix until it forms a lumpy dough
- Rest the dough for 5 minutes
- Knead until (mostly) smooth — don't overwork the dough
- Separate the dough into 2 equal parts;
- Use your pasta roller's standard process to roll and cut the noodles into dough (roll it at the roller's widest setting, letter fold the dough, and repeat until smooth; gradually reduce the width and keep rolling in stages until thin, then cut) — this can be done by hand as well
- If you are not cooking the noodles immediately, dust them in flour and cover with a damp towel
Prepare the noodles
- If you purchased noodles, follow the instructions on the package to cook the noodles; cook them a little under, then follow the oiling and cooling step below
- Boil water; keeping the heat high, add the noodles
- Gently stir the noodles until foam rises
- Reduce heat to medium and cook for another 30 seconds (they will still be a little short of standard al dente for pasta)
- Roughly drain the noodles and move them to a bowl
- Coat with oil and use chopsticks to toss and separate the noodles until coated in oil and cooled to room temperature (traditionally, you can use a fan to cool them faster)
Prepare the chicken and sauce
- Boil the chicken with the ginger and sichuan peppercorns, removing any foam that rises, until you can easily pierce the chicken with a chopstick
- While the chicken cooks, combined the ingredients for the sauce
- Remove the chicken and rinse it in cold water
- While the chicken cools, boil the bean sprout in the same pot for 1 minute, then drain and cool them (cook them in a noodle strainer to do this easily)
- Dry the chicken and shred it into strips
Assemble the dish
- Pile the bean sprouts in the center of a large rimmed dish or bowl
- Add the shredded chicken on top of the sprouts
- Divide the noodles into 4-6 portions; use chopticks or a fork to twist each portion into a rounded bundle and place them around the edges of the dish
- Add, in order, the peanuts, noodle sauce (stir it first), scallion, and cilantro on top of the chicken
- Impress your friends and your taste buds!
Product recommendations
Recommendations and sources for less common ingredients and tools can be found among my Product Recommendations
Nutrition information (per serving)*
*Please note: nutrition information is my best approximation based on the ingredients I used when creating the recipe; it is intended to be informational only