Wednesday, February 24, 2010

I Mein It


I recently went to a local restaurant solely because they had jia jiang mein on the menu. I have never seen it on the menu and it is one of my favorite noodle dishes. I have heard that is usually found at Korean Chinese restaurants. Wikipedia states that it originated in China and then was brought to Korea by Chinese immigrants. There seems to be some variation between the Chinese and Korean versions. After eating it at the restaurant I had to try it out at home, of course. I did not grow-up eating jia jiang mein. My mother has never heard of it. I had seen an episode of "Simply Ming" where he prepared jia jiang mein with his father, but I do not know what I did with the recipe. Anyway, this is my first attempt. This particular recipe called for ground pork (I used turkey), sweet bean sauce, ground bean sauce, sugar, scallions, water and noodles.

It was pretty good, but a little sweet for me. Anyone out there have their own recipe? I would love to try it out.

2 comments:

ai said...

It looks great, though from the sound of it it might be too sweet for my taste, too. Is it supposed to be always cooked with sugar? I've been dreaming of going back to Seoul (mainly to enjoy their wonderful food culture), and I want to try THAT for sure.

pupule said...

Ai:
It has become the dish with the most variation in recipes that I have ever come across. It not only varies widely between the Korean and Chinese recipes, but also within those two cultures. I will be trying them out as I go along and then posting them. The next one has more Korean ingredients.