Shan Noodles

Ingredients

The noodles

• 500 gflat rice noodles
• fresh if possible
• or 300 g dried
• soaked and boiled

The chicken sauce

• 500 gminced chicken
• or pork
• 6tomatoes, chopped
• 2onions, chopped
• 8garlic cloves, crushed
• 3cm ginger, grated
• 1 teaspoonturmeric
• 1 teaspoonpaprika
• 2 tablespoonsfish sauce
• 4 tablespoonsoil
• salt

The dressing

• 4 tablespoonsgarlic oil
• with the fried garlic
• 2 tablespoonssoy sauce
• juice of 2 limes
• chilli oil, to taste
• roasted peanuts, crushed
• optional

To serve

• pickled mustard greens
• chopped
• chopped coriander
• spring onion
• a bowl of clear broth

Directions

1. Fry the garlic gently and slowly. It should go golden rather than brown. Brown garlic tastes bitter entirely. Garlic goes from golden to burnt fast. Take it off while still pale gold. It keeps cooking in the hot oil. Make a batch and use it across dishes. It is genuinely worth having ready.
2. Rinse them briefly in warm water. Cold noodles are stiff and break. Warm water softens them enough. Slice the garlic thinly and evenly. Slice them as evenly as you can.
3. Put the garlic into the cold oil. Starting in cold oil is deliberate. Bring it up slowly on a low heat. Give it about eight full minutes. Take it off while still pale gold. Strain the garlic out immediately. It keeps cooking in the hot oil. Heat the oil in a wide heavy pan. Add the chopped onion into the pan.
4. Cook it for about twelve minutes. It should soften and turn golden. Add the garlic and grated ginger. Give them about one full minute. Add the turmeric and the paprika. Fry them briefly in the hot oil. Heat releases their aromatic oils. Give them about thirty seconds only. Stir them so they do not burn. Add the minced chicken to the pan. Break it up thoroughly with a spoon.
5. Break up every lump as it browns. It should be quite fine and even. Take genuine time over that step. Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan. Do not reduce that quantity at all. Simmer it until thick and rich. Give it about twenty-five minutes.
6. Cook it down until it is right. Minced chicken must be cooked right through. Add the fish sauce and taste it. Taste it before adding any more salt. It should taste clearly savoury.
7. Adjust it all to your own taste. Rinse them briefly in warm water. Work gently so they do not tear. Cold noodles are stiff and break. Boil the noodles only very briefly. Fresh noodles need a minute at most. Drain them and then rinse briefly. That stops them sticking together.
8. Rinse them in warm rather than cold water. Cold water just makes them stiff. Toss them in garlic oil immediately. Do it while they are still warm. Put the dressed noodles in a bowl. Divide them between four bowls. Toss them once more in the bowl.
9. Add the soy sauce and lime juice. Toss them again to coat them all. Spoon the chicken sauce over the noodles. Spoon it over the top rather than mixing. Scatter fried garlic over the top. Add the pickled greens alongside. Scatter coriander and spring onion over. Add them right at the very end. They wilt down in the hot sauce. Add it according to your own taste.
10. Serve a bowl of clear broth alongside. Serving it is always done at once. Serve it immediately after assembling. Assemble each bowl freshly to order. The sauce keeps three days refrigerated. Cook the noodles fresh each time.

Technique

• Garlic stored in oil can grow the bacteria that cause botulism, which is a documented real risk — refrigerate garlic oil and use it within a few days rather than keeping it at room temperature or for weeks.
• Fry the garlic starting in cold oil on a low heat for about eight minutes, which flavours the oil deeply and browns it evenly, and take it off while still pale gold — it keeps cooking in the hot oil, and brown garlic tastes bitter and ruins the whole batch.
• Fish sauce is invisible in the finished dish and fish allergy can be severe, so say clearly it is there; crushed peanuts scattered over are visible but peanut allergy can be severe too, so say clearly if you have used them.

Substitutions

• Pork stands in for chicken; the sauce is tomato-led rather than meat-led, so six tomatoes to five hundred grams of meat is genuinely the proportion and should not be reduced.
• The soup version, with the noodles served in broth rather than tossed dry, is equally common and both are genuinely eaten daily; the atlas gives the dry version as the more distinctive.

Variations

• Loosen fresh rice noodles by rinsing them briefly in warm rather than cold water and separating the strands gently by hand — cold noodles are stiff and break. Boil them a minute at most and rinse in warm water, then toss them in garlic oil while still warm, which coats every strand and stops them sticking.
• Cook the sauce down about twenty-five minutes until it clings to a spoon rather than running, since a thin sauce just pools at the bottom of the bowl.
• Pickled mustard greens are essential rather than a garnish: the dish is rich and oily and the sour pickle cuts that entirely, doing genuinely real work. Spoon the sauce over the noodles rather than mixing it in, since the eater tosses it at the table, and serve the clear broth alongside to sip between mouthfuls rather than pouring it over.

History

Rice noodles with marinated chicken or pork from Shan State, carried nationwide by Shan migrants and Mandalay noodle shops.

Frequently asked questions

What is Shan Noodles?

Shan Noodles is a main from Myanmar: rice noodles with garlicky chicken-tomato sauce and pickled greens. Rice noodles with marinated chicken or pork from Shan State, carried nationwide by Shan migrants and Mandalay noodle shops.

How long does Shan Noodles take to make?

Shan Noodles takes 40 minutes of preparation and 40 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 4. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Shan Noodles?

Yes, within limits. Pork stands in for chicken; the sauce is tomato-led rather than meat-led, so six tomatoes to five hundred grams of meat is genuinely the proportion and should not be reduced. The soup version, with the noodles served in broth rather than tossed dry, is equally common and both are genuinely eaten daily; the atlas gives the dry version as the more distinctive.

What is the most important thing to get right in Shan Noodles?

Fry the garlic gently and slowly. It should go golden rather than brown. Brown garlic tastes bitter entirely. Garlic goes from golden to burnt fast. Take it off while still pale gold. It keeps cooking in the hot oil. Make a batch and use it across dishes. It is genuinely worth having ready.