Nanchang Mixed Rice Noodles

Ingredients

• 500 g fresh round rice noodles, or 250 g dried
• 6 tbsp chilli oil with plenty of sediment
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Chinkiang black vinegar
• 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
• 1/2 tsp fine salt
• 6 cloves garlic
• 80 g pickled dried radish (xian luobo gan)
• 60 g pickled mustard greens or snow vegetable
• 60 g roasted peanuts
• 4 spring onions
• small handful coriander

Before you cook

• Soak the dried noodles in cold water for two hours if you are not using fresh ones.
• Rinse the pickled radish and pickled greens under cold water, squeeze them dry, and chop them finely.
• Crush the peanuts to a coarse rubble with the flat of a knife.
• Mince the garlic to a fine paste.
• Slice the spring onions and roughly chop the coriander.

Steps

1. Bring a large pot of unsalted water to a rolling boil.
2. Drop in the rice noodles and stir them once so they separate.
3. Cook for about ninety seconds for fresh noodles, or three minutes for soaked dried ones, until they bend easily but still have a core of bite.
4. Drain the noodles and plunge them straight into a bowl of cold water.
5. Swirl them around for fifteen seconds to wash off the surface starch, then drain them thoroughly in a colander.
6. Divide the noodles between four wide bowls.
7. Spoon the chilli oil, soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, white pepper and salt over the noodles.
8. Add the minced garlic, pickled radish and pickled greens.
9. Toss each bowl vigorously with chopsticks for twenty seconds until every strand is evenly coloured.
10. Top with the crushed peanuts, spring onion and coriander.
11. Serve at once, still just warm, with a small bowl of clear soup alongside.