Pingyang Stir-Fried Rice Noodles 平阳炒粉干

Pingyang Stir-Fried Rice Noodles (平阳炒粉干) are thin dried rice noodles fried with shiitake mushrooms, minced pork and other toppings, a dish of Pingyang county (平阳县) in Wenzhou (温州). Wenzhou Net (温州网) calls it a taste every Wenzhou person knows, and the noodles themselves come mainly from one village, Wushizhang (五十丈村) in Nanyan town (南雁镇).

Ingredients

The dish depends on Wushizhang rice noodles, known for being thin, white and resilient and made in the village for more than 300 years. Rice is soaked, wet-milled and steamed through more than twenty steps, giving noodles as fine as hair and white as jade; the making technique is on Wenzhou's municipal intangible-heritage list. The village lies on the south side of the Nanyandang Mountain (南雁荡山) national scenic area, and on a summer visit Wenzhou Net found the noodles spread to dry in large sheets on bamboo racks across its open, gravelly stream bed. A village saying runs: 'Mountains in front, mountains behind, a gravel bank between; many people, little land, making rice noodles day and night.'

How it is made

At Pingyang's first rice-noodle frying contest, held at Wushizhang and reported by China.com.cn (中国网) in July 2024, the set dish was the classic version: Wushizhang noodles fried with shiitake, minced pork and other side ingredients. Onlookers praised plates with an even colour and no clumps, and blamed a poor one on the covered braising (焖) step. The same report says the dish is known for noodles that are fine, fragrant and unbroken.

Where it comes from

The contest's free-choice round showed local variations: seafood noodles, home-style versions with loofah or sweet potato, and ones marked out as Pingyang by mati bamboo shoots (马蹄笋) or yellow rice cake (黄年糕) fried in with the noodles. At the same event the county launched 'Pingyang Fried Rice Noodles' as a labour brand with a shop logo, aiming, in Zhejiang Online's (浙江在线) words, for a Pingyang counterpart to Shaxian snacks (沙县小吃). The dish earlier won a place among the first Wenzhou top ten farmhouse snacks.