Ding Ding Chao Mian (丁丁炒面) is a signature dish from Xinjiang. The region is located in the far west of China, adjacent to Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The majority of the population is Uyghur (a Turkic ethnic group), and their food is highly influenced by central Asian cuisine, as well as traditional Chinese cuisine. Xinjiang food is wildly popular in Beijing and we’ve been eating it we were growing up. Some of our favorite dishes are roast lamb skewers (Chinese kebabs), Baked samosa (A bread with savory filling), and Ding Ding Chao Mian.
Craving fresh noodles
Fresh handmade noodles are a luxury in the US. Back in China, they’re one of the cheapest foods you can get. Even in big cities like Beijing, you can easily find small diners serving handmade noodle dishes at 2 to 3 dollars a bowl. After eating fresh noodles for years, I’ve gotten picky about my noodles. That’s one of the reasons I feel reluctant to cook with dried noodles. They just don’t taste right. I miss the days when I could get fresh noodles for 50 cents a pound from our next-door vegetable market. I admit, it’s a bit too obsessive to make noodles from scratch just to cook a plate of fried noodles. But in order to present this dish the authentic way, freshly made noodles were a must.
Some of you might have heard of Ding Ding Chao Mian before. For these who haven’t, you might wonder why I call these small pieces of dough “noodles” instead of gnocchi. I promise I didn’t make this up. We do have this type of noodle in China, and they’re shaped pretty similarly to gnocchi. They are freshly made from wheat flour (no potato) and have a very meaty texture. These short noodles are another form of hand pulled noodles. Instead of pulling the noodles into long thin strips, you leave the noodles thick, and cut them into small chunks. It results in a firmer shape and chewier texture. The short noodles soak up sauce nicely and keep their shape well. Perfect for stir frying.
Cooking notes
Do not let the handmade noodles scare you away from this recipe! You can use any type of noodle to cook Ding Ding Chao Mian, even dried. I recommend you use fresh wide noodles if you can find them. Simply chop the noodles into shorter pieces before boiling them, and you’ll have a dish very close to the original one. My other recommendations are Farfalloni and Rotini pasta. They will save you the trouble of chopping. Their texture is firm and very close to the original dish.
For those who want to challenge themselves with a real-deal Ding Ding Chao Mian, try making the noodles once and you’ll find it easier than you thought. If you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, I highly recommend you use it to knead the dough. It saves you time, allows the water to incorporate more thoroughly, and produces a dough that is easy to pull. A Xinjiang housewife who is familiar with the process can probably get the whole dish done in 45 minutes, from making the noodles by hand to finishing the stir-fry. I can’t. But I did manage to finish the whole thing in an hour. It could be a fun weekend project for you to challenge yourself with. And the results are very rewarding. If you’re not making the noodles from scratch, you can finish prep and cooking in 20 minutes. A great option for a quick weekday dinner. I adapted the recipe from the Ding Ding Chao Mian by the famous Chinese blogger Wen Yi. She is married to a Xinjiang guy and has learned a lot of secrets to create the authentic flavor. When I’m looking for a Xinjiang recipe, I go to her blog first to make sure I’m doing everything right. You can’t go wrong when you’ve learned from the best 🙂
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