#795: Master Kong Red Oil Dan Dan Noodles

Here’s another one that Bo H. sent me from China! Thanks again! So what are Dan Dan noodles? here’s what Wikipedia says:

Dandan noodles or Dandanmian (traditional Chinese: 擔擔麵, simplified Chinese: 担担面) is a classic dish originating from ChineseSichuan cuisine. It consists of a spicy sauce containing preserved vegetables (often including zha cai, 榨菜, lower enlarged mustard stems, or ya cai, 芽菜, upper mustard stems), chili oil, Sichuan pepper, minced pork, and scallions served over noodles.

Alrighty then, let’s give it a try!

I cut and pasted all the text from the lid and scanned it. Click to enlarge.

Hey – chopsticks!

Here’s the big packet of spicy paste.

That’s a lot of goopy stuff – looks spicy!

The vegetables.

Looks like a nice little bunch of veggies.

Then there’s this little pouch with little hard things in it…

I ate one and I think they get sprinkled on top at the end.

Finished. Interesting… This one was fun to try; I’m really looking forward to these Master Kong’s as they’re huge in China and these aren’t available around this neck of the woods, that’s for sure. The noodles aren’t bad, – there’s a lot of them too. The flavor is a little bit spicy and a bit greasy. The veggies are nice. The only problem here is it seems kind of bland to me. Could use a little more flavor I think. 2.75 out of 5.0 stars.UPC bar code 6903252084818 .

Here’s a Master Kong commercial

How to make DanDan noodles at home

#321: Little Cook Spicy Beef Flavor

So this looks really interesting. Upon tearing off the outer cellophane, i notice that where it says NEW TVP SPICY BEEF FLAVOR is actually a sticker. In fact, on the sides there were stickers as well – ingredients, nutrition facts and direction on preparation.

My Spidey Senses were tingling. I took the lid off of the bowl and held it up to my swing arm lamp. Lo and behold, hidden by the NEW TVP SPICY BEEF sticker were the sacred words ‘with Real Meat.’

The bowl contained two packets – first a small one containing some bit of veg and some soup base very much smelling and tasting like curry.

Then, the retort pouch – something I have not seen since my youth. What is funny is that its exactly the same as it was when I was a kid – same size, lettering and everything. So this means there’s some sauce and possibly some decent veg and meat going on inside. Thing is that from seeing what it said underneath the sticker on top and reading the ingredients sticker, I was not going to find any meat in this sucker.

Ah yes – don’t use this if its punctured or oozing everywhere.

There’s the curry like soup base atop the noodles. See the line? That’s the boiling water line! I was floored – it asks for so much…

But I obliged it to a degree; it said to leave the lid attached and use the Retort Pouch to hold it down as the noodles ‘cooked.’ I decided of course to go the sane route and use an old Tower of Power record.

Here we are – the finished product. First, the noodles are great – nice texture and firmness. The broth is spicy and beef-like and very curry. Finally the textured vegetable protein fake meat things that are found here and there are really weird but interesting and flavorful too. In short, this whole things is a smorgasbord of oddities tat I find irresistable. 4.75 out of 5.0 stars! Little Cook is the man!