Dan Dan Mian

An easy, delicious Sichuan noodle dish. The base recipe came from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty, but I've modified it pretty heavily.  In this case the beef is used more as a sesoning, so it can be omitted to make it vegetarian.  See Chinese Ingredients for pictures and substitutions of ingredients.

~ 1/3 lb dried Chinese wheat noodles (I've also had good luck with some Vietnamese wheat noodles which only take 2-3 minutes to cook)
 2 T vegetable oil
handful of dried chiles, broken in half and seeds discarded
3-4 T Ya cai or Tianjin preserved vegetable, well rinsed to reduce salt if using Tianjin preserved vegetable
1/4 lb ground beef
2 t soy sauce
2 green onions, chopped
1/4 C pickled vegetables (optional, I use some that's a mix of mustard, day lily and cow pea greens)

Sauce
1.5 t freshly roasted and ground Sichuan pepper
4 T chile oil (preferably homemade, with chile flakes for more heat), substitute part of the chile oil out for vegetable oil for less heat
2.5-3 T tahini or Chinese sesame paste
2 T soy sauce
2 T dark soy sauce
salt to taste

Heat the oil and sear the chiles, then add in the Tianjin preserved vegetable and the pickled vegetables and saute till fragrant. Add in the ground beef and soy sauce and brown. When the beef is browned, add the green onion.  Remove from the heat.

While that's browning, mix the sauce ingredients together; the sesame paste should emulsify the soy sauce and the chile oil together. Boil the noodles according to the package instructions.

When the noodles and the beef are done, drain the noodles and add to the beef in the wok, then apply the sauce. Toss and serve.