For those of you who think I can't do more than fry an egg--

You haven't seen me lately!

School started this week, and with every new semester comes new semester resolutions. One of mine is to make at least one authentic Sichuanese meal a week. I've been scouring my Sichuan cookbook in search of the best, most authenic, non-innard meals to make. Each recipe I want to master is marked with a yellow sticky note.

The first meal I tried is a noodle dish called dan dan mian. It's fairly simple and only requires a few ingredients. According to my cookbook, dan dan mian is one of the most famouse Sichuanese street snacks. The name "dan dan" comes from the fact that vendors would carry tubs of these noodles on a bamboo shoulder pole (called "dan"). I've only had these noodles on the street once, but I see them on the menu in many, many restaurants.

Finding the ingredients was the toughest part of this dish. Although I read some Chinese, I'm not particularly fluent in the spice aisle. I spent over an hour in the store looking at the various jars and bottles. Finally one of the clerks noticed I was spending an uncomfortable amount of time looking at lables and came over to help. Five minutes later, I had everything I needed.

Many noodle dishes in Chengdu are served sauce-on-bottom. You are left to do the mixing yourself at your table. The sauce for dan dan mian contains oil, preserved vegetable, light and dark soy sauce, chili oil, vinigar and Sichuan pepper. Basically, all these ingredients are cooked with the preserved vegetable and placed into small bowls to await the noodles.

For the topping, ground pork is cooked with Shaoxing rice wine and some soy sauce. Once the dish is ready to be served, a scattering of pork is placed on top of the noodles along with some fresh cut scallions.

Believe it or not, my dan dan mian noodles turned out spectacular. They were hot and filling, and easy enough that I could reduplicate it anytime I want.

Next time I make a dish (tomorrow), I'll be taking pictures of the process. Keep checking back!