Yang Chun Mian (阳春面) literally means ‘spring noodles’. The dish is particularly popular in the Jiangnan region, where Shanghai is located. This noodle soup is so simple to prepare that it could not be any easier. Nevertheless, it provides a fine meal with minimal effort. Along the way, you learn a lot about Chinese noodle soup preparation.
It is characterised by a clear broth, thin wheat noodles and a very subtle flavour profile. In its original form, this dish consists only of water, noodles, spring onions and oil or lard. This simplicity tempts people to use the dish as a quick meal, and nowadays it is almost impossible to find a recipe that does not involve cooking with water and then adding ‘Chinese-style chicken bouillon powder’ as a seasoning, i.e. granulated stock in Asian style. Anyone interested in this can find lots of explanations and videos online. We do it differently.
Unlike in Europe, Asian chicken stock focuses strongly on the chicken and usually only ginger and spring onions are used as accompanying aromatics (however, the addition of a little pork belly is also popular). In addition, the stock should contain plenty of fat at the end. To make this stock, we use a whole soup chicken, which we boil in plenty of water and drain immediately as soon as the first foam forms. The chicken and the pot are washed thoroughly to remove any unwanted impurities. The chicken is then slowly brought to the boil again in fresh, cold water with plenty of ginger and spring onions.
Any foam that still forms is removed with a small sieve or ladle. After simmering gently for 2 hours without a lid, we turn off the stove. Only when the stock has reached room temperature do we pour it through a sieve and chill it. Then you can remove the fat that has solidified on the surface and separate it from the golden stock. However, we save it for making the noodle soup.
Spring onions are central to this noodle soup. They are washed and the outer layer removed if necessary. Then the white part is cut into large pieces and the green part into fine rings. The latter are set aside.
You will need Asian wheat noodles, which should be very thin. If, like us, you can buy fresh ones, you should use these (they can also be stored for many months when packaged). Dried noodles are the alternative.
Now it’s time to use the fat from the homemade chicken stock. If you don’t have any, you’ll need to use oil or – as in most recipes of Chinese origin – lard. Melt a good half of the fat skimmed from the stock in a large saucepan over medium heat…
…and add the large pieces of spring onion. Fry for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until both the onions and the bottom of the pan are nicely browned.
Then remove the spring onions, as they have served their purpose. Pour the stock into the pot and stir to loosen the browned bits at the bottom, which are a very important flavour element for this soup. Add a little soy sauce, salt and white pepper to taste. If you want a sweeter flavour, add a little dark soy sauce. You can now increase the amount of fat to suit your taste. This is about flavour, but also about mouthfeel. A soup without any fat would not taste very good.
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. We place a large sieve in our stock and cook the pasta directly in it, so that it absorbs even more flavour.
Today, we are adding mushrooms to our soup, which we briefly pan-fry dry, and pak choi, which we cook in the stock for a short time, just like the noodles. Neither of these ingredients are part of the simplest version of this soup, but they go very well with it.
We preheat large bowls in the oven at 50 °C. Then we place the cooked noodles in them and sprinkle rings of the green part of the spring onions on top.
Mushrooms and pak choi follow, but as mentioned, both are optional. Then the hot, almost boiling stock is poured over everything, warming it all up thoroughly once again. And with that, the Yang Chun Mian is ready to serve.
Enjoy.
And may the taste be with you.
Ingredients (for 2 people):
Asian chicken stock (makes a good 2 litres – enough for 4 people):
1 free-range chicken (1–1.5 kg)
3 litres cold water
3–4 cm ginger, washed
6–8 spring onions, washed
Noodle soup:
Fat from chicken stock or lard or neutral oil
6–10 spring onions, depending on thickness
200 g dry Chinese wheat noodles or 400 g fresh noodles (as thin as possible)
1 litre chicken stock
4 tablespoons soy sauce
Optional: 1–2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
Salt and white pepper to taste
We: mushrooms and pak choi
