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JUST WHEN I THOUGHT THE SHOW WAS GONNA EXIT FASTER THAN IT ENTERED, ON THE SIDE OF A NEIGHBORHOOD ROAD…
A NEW JOINT OPENED
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I must admit, my belated appreciation for the hype of Xi’an Famous Foods, was a slow, reversed progression.
Six years ago before we left New York, it wasn’t yet a thing over there. Then after six years of looming around Hong Kong and then now Beijing, I barely noticed its presence let alone recognizing it as an established “food category”. It was a shameful episode of my negligence, one of which I could only redeem by… well, help you not to repeat my mistake. The first noise I heard from this funnily named Chinese regional cuisine from central-west, ironically, was when a few months ago, I was on my Beijing couch watching America’s Food Network featuring a micro-trending street-eats in New York, called “liang (cold) pi (skin)”. Liang-pi? You mean, the liang-pi they sold from a booth right next to the cash-register in my local supermarket? The liang-pi that periodically showed up on my dinner menu? The liang-pi that, yes, there at the corner groceries as well. And yes, there at the food-courts in malls, too! Now that I’m consciously aware of such thing, the liang-pi that was previously invisible to my radar, now appears to be, actually, everywhere!
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And of course it is not a coincidence that wherever liang-pi hanged, its entourage of cumin lamb “burger” (rou-jia-mo), and hand-torn noodles (biang-biang mian), or lamb offal soup (yang-tang), followed predictably. The formation and uprise of a complete and entirely new food-category, to me at least, had gathered enough heat in the backdrop for me to welcome our first explosive encounter.
But I was mostly disappointed.
Steady now, New York’s Xi’an Famous Foods-fans. With gathered informations from photos and method of deduction, I can almost say this with certainly that your famous foods, possibly made from better quantity/quality of ingredients, taste better than here’s famous foods which are often inconsistent in quality. The liang-pi (cold skin noodle) here is often bland and dominated by cheap vinegar. The meats in the hand-torn noodles, often scarce if any. The “burgers”, in short, not famous yet.
Just when I thought the show was going to exit faster than it entered, on the side of a neighborhood road, a new joint opened.
The joint wasn’t discreet to say the least. For the entire duration of its renovation, a large banner across the construction read “Beijing’s best biang-biang noodle”. Well, I’d be pretty upset at my PR if I was the owner, because first of all, that statement isn’t hard to live up to, like I said. Second of all, it should read this instead, “Beijing’s BEST hot mi-pi (rice skin noodle)”, because that’s what this joint has got going on for.
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Unlike liang-pi (cold skin noodle) which is made with mostly starches of different sort (wheat starch and cornstarch, etc), mi-pi (rice skin noodle) is mostly made with short-grain rice, with slippery smooth and chewy texture similar to Cantonese zhu-chang-fen, plus the subtle fragrance of short-grain white rice. But wait, OH-ho-ho~ wait wait just wait, the difference. The difference, is that they serve the rice noodle still piping hot (in fact, “hot mi-pi” is referring to temperature not spiciness), peeled and cut right out of the steamer, then, and then, douse it with (I’m serious) an ocean of salivatingly aromatic, mesmerisingly maroon (red just doesn’t cut it anymore), senselessly addictive chili oil made with sichuan peppercorns and spices (did you see that 2 giant tubs there that I made? That’s how much I need it)!
The combination is impeccable, slippery, oily, spicy and tinglingly numbing. Each fat ribbons of ivory-white, seemingly sticking to one another stubbornly, slides and separates into the red savoury, tangy concoction. And just when you think it’s too much to take, the pleasure or the heat, an occasional crunch and refreshment from the blanched bean sprouts tells you that, yes you can.
Now this, this should what’s micro-trending. This should be, as the chubby da-ma (middle-age auntie) who reined the kitchen said to us with a proud chuckle, the everyday food-item people in Xi’an cannot live without. This should be, as she also said, the kind of breakfast that is worthy of the name, Xi’an famous foods.
Now are you ready to really eat famous yet.
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Servings: 2 to 4
The rice noodle recipe is another one that I strongly recommending measuring by weight, instead of by volume. My rice flour weights 170 grams at a bit more than 1 1/2 cup, but online conversion would say it should be 1 cup only! Then my whole short-grain rice weights 170 grams at a bit more than 3/4 cup (which is bizarre how different it is from the flour…), when online conversion also says 1 cup. I really don’t know which one to go with. So if you can, weight it.
In a perfect world, rice noodles made more conveniently from store-bought rice flour, would yield no difference than the ones made from soaking/blending rice milk from scratch. But, this is not a perfect world… In fact, the rice noodles made from scratch are noticeably smoother, more slippery and silky in texture than the quick ones from using rice flour. Is the difference worth the extra 4 ~ 5 hours of soaking, and the extra step of blending? In short, YES. But let’s just say if you find yourself in a must-have-homemade-rice-noodle-quick emergency, the rice flour-version is an adequate substitute. I’ve included instructions for both.
If your are soaking/blending rice, choose starchy short-grain rice, such as sushi rice or pearl rice, instead of long-grain. Do no use jasmine rice, basmati rice, or any other long-grain variety.
The chili oil is almost identical to the crushed cucumber salad, except I doubled the ground coriander, and the total volume to make a large batch. The reason for the doubled ground coriander is because I noticed, from this particular joint, that they use coriander seed oil – a sichuan specialty – to make their chili oil. Since I doubt that most of you would have access to that kind of thing, I boosted the ground coriander to make up.
Why is granulated chicken bouillon in this recipe? It’s MSG. That’s how it’s authentically done.
* In this recipe, 1 cup = 250 ml.
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The seasoning:
- Chili oil:
- 2 cups (474 grams/500 ml) canola oil
- 1/2 cup (50 grams sichuan chili flakes, or Korean chili flakes (I don’t recommend using any other kind)
- 3 tbsp (23 grams white sesame seeds
- 4 star anise
- 2 ~ 3 dried bay leaves
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 tsp curry powder
- 2 tbsp ground sichuan peppercorn
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 4 grated garlic
- Seasoned soy sauce: * for a quick fix, you can just combine soy sauce, water, sugar and vinegar
- 3/4 cup (187 ml) soy sauce
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) water
- 1 tbsp light brown sugar
- 2 tsp whole sichuan peppercorn
- 1 tsp fennel seed
- 2 star anise
- 1/2 stick cinnamon
- 2 whole cloves
- 1/3 cup Asian black vinegar
- To serve:
- Blanched bean sprouts
- Granulated chicken bouillon
To make the chili oil: Mix the soy sauce and grated garlic together, then set aside. Combine canola oil, chili flakes, white sesame seeds, star anise, dried bay leaves, ground coriander, ground cumin and curry powder (leave the ground sichuan peppercorn for later!) in a large, deep pot and set over medium heat. Bring to a gentle boil and fry the mixture for 3 ~ 4 minutes, stirring constantly, until the chili flakes have turned darker in color (but NOT BLACK!!). Turn off the heat immediately, then add the ground sichuan peppercorn. Stir and let fry in residual heat for about 10 seconds. Then add the soy sauce/grated garlic mixture. The oil will boil up a little due to the added moisture. Just keep stirring until the sizzling has died down.
Let the chili oil sit for at least 2 hours, or best overnight before using.
To make the seasoned soy sauce: Combine soy sauce, water, light brown sugar, sichuan peppercorn, fennel seed, star anise, cinnamon and cloves, and simmer on low for 15 min. Strain the mixture, discard the spices, then add the Asian black vinegar and set aside.
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Homemade rice noodle, or “mi (rice) pi (skin)“: adapted from many recipes combined
- 7 oz (200 grams, about heaping 1 cup) short-grain rice (see update!), or 200 grams rice flour (about 2 cups minus 2 tbsp)(I used this brand, or you could try Bob’s Red Mill, too)
- 1/2 cup (65 grams) potato starch (much preferred), or cornstarch
- 2 cups + 2 heaping tbsp (535 grams) of water
UPDATE 2016/01/05: The “short grain rice” I used for blending the rice-mixture was called “東北大米”, and not the typical “pearl rice/sushi rice”, which can be extra soft and sticky. There are so many variety of rices which makes it difficult to specify in a recipe. But if the varieties available in your supermarket are the commonly found sushi rice or pearl rice, I would suggest blending 40% of sushi rice with 60% of jasmine rice to try to reach a good balance. Good luck!
UPDATE 2017/02/13: I forgot to specify that rice flour should be equivalent IN WEIGHT, not volume.
To make the rice noodle batter from scratch: Put the rice in a large sieve and rinse clean under water. Shake off any excess water, then transfer the rice to a blender, along with 535 grams of water. Let soak for 4 ~ 5 hours. The grain should crush easily between your fingers after soaking. Then add the potato starch or cornstarch, and blend for 2 ~ 3 minutes (stopping for 30 seconds in between if your blender needs rest) until finely pureed. Run the mixture through a very fine sieve, into another large bowl. Use a spoon to press on any larger rice-bits, to help crushing and passing them through the sieve.
To make the rice noodle batter from rice flour: Whisk together rice flour, potato starch of cornstarch and water together until even.
To cook the rice noodle: Bring the water inside a large steamer to boil, and keep on high heat during steaming. You can use any shallow sheet-pan that fits into your steamer, and it would significantly speed up the process if you have 2 rotating pans to use. I am using a pizza-pan for my wok-turned-steamer. Brush the interior of the pan very thinly with canola oil, then pour enough batter to cover the pan in a thin layer (WHISK THE BATTER EVERY TIME BEFORE YOU POUR). Place the pan inside the steamer as levelled as you can (so the noodles are even in thickness), then put the lid on and steam on high heat for 2 ~ 3 min. The rice noodle is done when the surface form large air-bubbles (don’t worry it will deflate in a split second). Remove the pan from the steamer, and place with the rotating pan filled with thin batter, if you have 2 pans.
Thinly brush the top surface of the cooked noodle-sheet with canola oil, then run a spatula around the edges. Tilt the pan so it faces the counter, then gently scrape the noodle-sheet onto a cutting-board, and cut into thick strips with pastry-cutter. Don’t worry if your sheet is more “curled/rolled up” than a “flat sheet”. The noodles will stick to each other no matter what in the absence of liquid. Don’t freak out! They will separate more easily once sauce is applied.
Repeat the process until you’re done with all the batter. Serve the cut rice noodles with blanched bean sprouts, seasoned soy sauce, 1/4 tsp of granulated chicken bouillon and LOTS of chili oil.
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66 responses to “XI-AN FAMOUS HOT RICE RIBBONS”
i want to fly over there and give you the biggest fattest hug ever in all the land. with this and your street meat recipe, i am so equipped to live in the middle of nowhere, it’s not even funny.
Thank you for this post, I only just recently discovered this cuisine and plan on visiting Xi’an next year…mostly for the food!!!
I was in Xi’an last year, and I really recommend going there! The food is amazing in the muslim quarter and there are lots of little stalls to keep you busy putting food in your mouth the whole day. A couple of months ago, I read an article about Xi’an Food from J. Kenji López-Alt (seriouseats) which is worth reading. I just love the guy and his Food Lab!
http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/08/what-to-eat-xian-muslim-quarter-china.html
Sorry, forgot to say: Thank you so much for your rice-noodle recipe. It’s often hard to get the really broad noodles in stores. Since I love Thai Food, these wide noodles are used for some of my favorite dishes (rice noodles drunkard’s style). Now I know, I could make them myself – if I don’t lack of motivation ;-)
Oh man thanks for that link! Everything looks amazing!!
you are a GENIUS mandy!
WOW! This is epic! Thank you for the recipe.
I can’t believe I actually have all the ingredients to make this.
Things are gonna get fiery. And dangerous.
Homemade rice noodles?!?! Oh girl, I love this so, so hard.
Whoa! You are a genius!
Drooling here. I really miss China just now…
I love rice noodles but I’ve not had them this fresh – they’re on my list now, and the chili oil looks absolutely amazing.
oh my gawd!! i grew up indulging this delicacy!! brought back so many delicious memories :)
WHAAAAAt?! You made your own rice noodles?! I didn’t even know this sorcery was possible!
You are amazing, and this looks amazing!
ahhh! you just blew my mind. i love rice noodles. i love fat noodles. i love homemade things. you just became my best friend. you’re a damn genius!
Hi! This looks absolutely amazing! I was wondering how long the chili oil mixture and seasoned soy sauce would keep in the fridge?
Jess: I would say 2 ~ 3 weeks no problem.
Looks good! I love hot noodle! Cant wait till try.
WHAT homemade rice noodles? Goddess + Genius.
This looks amazing!! How did the texture of the rice noodles turn out? It’s so hard to get real “liang feng” type texture from dry rice noodles.
I just wanted to say that you are my hero. Can’t wait to try this!
I need to make this… I NEED to make this…I NEED TO MAKE THISSSSSS!!!!!!!
What temperature water did you soak your rice with?
I soaked with lukewarm water, and 24 hours later, my rice is still hard and tough. :( I’m going to try to re-soak with hot water!
Sarah, I soaked them with just cold water. What kind of rice are you using? Don’t use long-grain rice. Use short-grain, preferably Asian variety.
If you cannot find starchy Asian short-grain rice in small batch, I would suggest trying rice flour. I would recommend the brands from Thailand (NOT “sticky rice flour”, but just “rice flour”)
Thanks for the reply, Mandy! I am using short grain rice, but I think my rice might just be sad. I bought a different brand than usual, and never liked the way it cooked, so it’s been sitting in my pantry for a while– perhaps that’s the issue! Thanks again.
YES YES YES YES YES YES I love this blog all the time but extra hard today.
Homemade smooth, slippery, silky rice noodles?! (Not to mention the chili oil and sauce…) I love this. I absolutely love that kind of rice noodle, but it never crossed my mind that I could make them myself from scratch.
I seriously love your recipes, your photos, and how brave and ambitious you are about tackling & sharing so many hardcore-homemade techniques with the world! I am very behind in my blog-reading (and even more desperately behind in my blog-commenting), but I wanted to overcome my embarrassment about never commenting to tell you how much I admire your blog — especially when you post killer recipes like this one! :)
Hey Mandy,
I made this tonight, and it was amazing. As a university student I’m constantly bored of eating out, so your intense recipes are always a fun challenge for me. I love asian food and your stuff is better than most stuff they serve at restaurants in my opinion.
I don’t know if you get requests a lot but do you have a really good recipe for peaches and prawns or honey walnut shrimp or coconut shrimp or something along those lines? One of my favourite things to get at asian places … and by “really good recipe” I’d try the ones from allrecipes and all but I’d rather have a crazy-dopeshit-Mandy-kickass style recipe.
Jack: Hahahaa thank you!! I’m flattered! I do love this Taiwanese dish, fried shrimp with pineapple (sounds a bit weird now it’s typed out). Maybe the addition of peaches or honey will kick it up a notch, too. I will see what I can do but it’ll probably take a while… there’s a line-up of recipe-demon chasing after me at this point…
Horrible reflux from pregnancy couldn’t keep me from eating this 1-2 times a day when we were in xian! I saw someone eating this in a tiny dive and knew I had to try it. I took a photo of the noodles and the Chinese menu hoping my Cantonese chef dad could replicate–he couldn’t. My husband and I have talked about this for years. SOOOOO happy to see a recipe for it! Going to get my dad to make it! Thank you!
leaving behind xi’an famous foods was one of the hardest things about moving out of nyc.. I almost cried when I made this chili oil. this is the stuff. I couldn’t stop smelling it. I can’t wait to put it on everything. I’m over the moon. thank you.
Hi Mandy, I made this last week, so yummy! I have a question. How do you(or can you) keep the noodles warm after they are made? It took me a while to cook through all the batter, and by the time I was done the noodles were all cold.
Emlyn, that was my dilemma, too. That’s why in a vendor, they steam these to order (because they cook so fast anyways). What I did was, I microwaved the steamed noodles a little before serving ;P Or, even though I’ve never tried this, maybe you can keep them warm in a low-heat steamer, too (without further cooking them).
Just made this recipe AGAIN. It’s bloody amazing. This is one of the things I miss most after living in Beijing while working on Olympics. Makes me so happy to have this on tap (and believe me, at the rate I make it it is on tap!!!)
Alena, you’re making me want a bowl right now, too :)
Question? Korean chili flakes; are you talking about gochugaru? Or should I buy the EXPENSIVE Sichuan chili flakes online?? I want to make sure I have the right thing considering this is a project meal.
Leslie, yes it’s “gochugaru” (after Googling). In my experience, sichuan chili flakes are spicier than Korean types, so if you want, you can use 50/50. But if gochugaru is all you have, then that’s fine, too :)
Thank you for a delicious recipe. I actually like your version of the chili oil even more than the one at XFF. Well done!
are you supposed to strain or not strain the chili oil? Some of your other chili oils specify “strain” but this one doesn’t?
Danielle, don’t strain this one :) Xi’an style chili oil is more like a “paste” really.
Hello Mandy, I just tried making the chili oil using Korean chili flakes. I had a taste but the chili oil is not spicy at all. Is it probably because I used the wrong kind of Korean chili flakes? Or is there more than one kind of Korean chili flakes? I can’t read Korean so couldn’t tell.
Thank you!
Pam, Korean chili flakes are definitely a lot less spicy than Sichuan chili flakes, but it has a good chili fragrance to make up for it. My ideal is to use 50/50 sichuan and Korean chili flakes. I can’t read Korean either, but it shouldn’t be completely non-spicy, which is weird. is that’s the only type you can buy? I would try a couple different kinds from different places, or buy whole small dried Asian chilis and grind your own in the spice-grinder.
I cannot wait to make this and be a hero. My wife is from Xi’an and it’s been a very long time either of us has had authentic Chinese food. Thank you so much for this. You will always be my hero!
Question- I finally got around to making this. I used the Asian rice flour and potato starch. I poured a thin layer and the top came out white and hard. Any idea what I’m doing wrong? I used a non stick cake pan with s little oil and steamed in wok.
Kim, oh boy… It’s hard to say what went wrong except to suspect that the variety of rice flour was different (the Chinese for the rice flour is 粘米粉）. Perhaps you could try blending your own rice with water (in the recipe as well). So sorry about that. Hope you have better luck next time!
This would’ve been a bowl of heavenly slurpable deliciousness… instead it was a bowl of almost heavenly delicious mochiness XD I used pearl rice, which I DO NOT RECOMMEND as it’s waaaay too sticky. My noodles were even too sticky to be cut, and even though I tried to cut them into ribbons, they all clumped together in the bowl. It was literally, like eating mochi (which normally wouldn’t be an undesirable thing).
Also, I thought I needed to strain the solids out of the blended rice mixture, but that was a mistake. The batch that I meticulously strained couldn’t steam into anything, but after I added the solids back it worked out into something :)
I’m not gonna stray from sushi rice next for my next attempt!
Angela, I’m going to add an update in the recipe to suggest the mixture of rices to use if blending your own (even though I haven’t tried it myself). Sorry about the sticky mess! I hope you have better luck next time!
Made this again, this time with regular sushi rice. Can confirm its awesomeness.
P.S. That seasoned soy sauce makes a huge batch. But it’ so good on so many things, eg giving life to instant noodles.
I am loving the idea of making these and REALLY interested in using them in my restaurant—-would it be practical to make these noodles in advance—keep them layered/oiled—-then at the last minute able to slice them babies up either cold and sauce them or even dip them in hot water for a hot application and still be sexier than hell? I have attempted and FAILED miserably to make so-called Belt-Noodles—the kind where one can pick up a oiled piece of dough and stretch it all the way to Africa like a jump rope then into a stock pot but have given up—–so I am hoping this recipe will work well—–btw—you FUCKING ROCK!!! :)
Hi Jack, I’ve tried making them beforehand, laying them separately in between parchments, but I would say only for less than 2 hours. I hope you have some success with this recipe!
Ahhhmazing. I LOVE these & just went to the store to get the rest of the ingredients!
As an avid fan of Xi’an Famous Foods as well (their newest outpost opened on my street on UES over a year ago), I am desperate to figure out their spicy cucumber salad recipe. I have scoured the interwebs and closest recipes are an approximation of what I’ve found to be liang ban huang gua (涼拌黃瓜). Yet, I can’t find anything close that is even worth my while, as I have watched them ladle out different dark sauces on those smashed cucumbers and I just drool. Also, Chang-an Spicy Tofu — their version with those pickled thingys on top makes me salivate — Any ideas, suggestions?
Do you end up straining the chili oil, or do you just take out the bay leaves and star anise, or just leave it all in?
Hope you’re having an interesting day
Sofia, you just remove the bay and anise :)
I’ve just discovered your website, and I love the look of your gorgeous recipes… and journalling… and photographs. I now have bookmarks galore and will set about cooking up a storm forthwith, although I daresay my wee kids won’t appreciate it yet ;) I’ll teach them to be epicurian yet!
Please, I’d like to ask, in this recipe for the chilli oil, what is it you mean by “curry powder”? It comes in a multitude of variable forms where I live. Thanks so much, if you have time to answer :) and even if you don’t!
Julia, hi welcome! I mean curry poeder in their most generic sense, like Indian curry powder (not grand masala):)
oh man, I am so late to the Lady & Pups game, here — but I am thrilled beyond words about this recipe. Making it for the second time this month. I put the chili oil on everything. Last night it went on grilled sweet potatoes (amazing). dip fries in it? YES. put it on leftover noodles from takeout? YES. amp up someone else’s chili oil? YES.
still working on getting the amount of batter in pan just right — my first ones are always too thick and then i run out of batter too fast.
i managed to make it with brown rice flour and the noodles are pretty smooth and have a nice texture. i’m sure the DIY rice method is even better, but i’m not missing it right now. I love this so much. Thank you!
This might sound like a stupid question, but can you taste the difference between fresh wazzed up rice batter and the batter made with rice flour, enough to go through the trouble of the soaking etc?
Lizzie, that really depends on the quality of the rice you’re using. With ready-made rice flour, you can choose the quality. But if you’re soaking your own rice for the batter, you can use high-quality rice that will result in better tasting noodles. But of course if you use bad quality rice, then you might as well just use the rice flour.
I lived in Xi An for 3 years and had a very similar experience as you, although I had a teaching job. If I was not teaching, I was cooking. Only two burners, one didn’t work properly. Wonder if wonders: in the small town of Chilliwack, 100 km east of Vancouver, a restaurant has opened up with authentic Xi An food, including fresh hand pulled noodles. No smog, no guards, no oppressive politics. Win win win.
where??! Name??! I get there occasionally…
Hi Mandy! I just tried these out yesterday night but unfortunately it didnt work well. Im using a different brand of rice flour but its not glutinious rice, so it should be ok but what happened was that during steaming the dough cracked from the middle, was very very chewy, tasted more of potato starch than rice even when I stuck to the weighting cautiously. Would you be so kind and help out on this if I shall reduce amount of potato starch for it not to be so chewy and cracking up? Or do you please have any recommendation on how to solve this? Im not in a position to have foodstuff flying around the globe and want to use up the stuff i already have. I love to do also the rolls filled with salmon and egg using the same type of rice wrapper dough:) Many many thanks!
Baru, I’d really love to help but I can only take a guess at what went wrong. It sounds to me that the Batter was dry? Maybe try adding more water. But again I can’t promise because it could also be the rice flour being the wrong type?
This chili oil is the best I’ve made yet!
I have to admit the instructions were very clear and easy to follow
I’m thinking of making the seasoned soy sauce and chilli oil as holiday gifts. Q do you have another recipe you could point me to as dipping sauce for dumplings?