Dan Dan Mian: Sichuan Noodles in Chilli Sauce

Dan dan mian — "shoulder-pole noodles," named for the street vendors who carried their equipment on shoulder poles — is the iconic Sichuan street noodle: thin wheat noodles in a complex sauce of sesame paste, chilli oil, ya cai (Yibin preserved vegetables), ground pork, and Sichuan peppercorn. The sauce is assembled in the bowl before the noodles are added — the noodles are mixed at the table, coating in the complex sauce as they are tossed.

• The sauce-in-bowl assembly technique (where cold sauce awaits hot noodles) is shared with Japanese hiyashi chuka and Korean bibim noodles
• The combination of sesame paste and chilli is structurally parallel to the Korean gochujang-sesame combination, though the aromatic vocabulary is completely different