Freshwater Loach with Noodles 泥鳅挂面

Freshwater Loach with Noodles (泥鳅挂面) is a stew of loach and dried hand-made noodles from Feidong County (肥东县), Anhui. People's Daily Online calls it one of Hefei's (合肥) ten folk dishes and describes it as the dish Feidong's tourism promoters put forward to represent the county. Restaurants from the county town to the townships have it on their menus, and Feidong households cook it for honoured guests.

Ingredients

The noodles are Feidong guamian (挂面), dried noodles made by hand in 18 steps, from washing and milling the wheat through kneading, resting and coiling to stretching the dough on bamboo poles and drying it. In China National Radio's report the noodles in the dish are Zhutang noodles from the Zhutang community (竹塘社区) in Qiaotouji town (桥头集镇), described as one of China's three great noodle villages, where noodle-making goes back more than a century and the noodles are listed as municipal intangible heritage. The noodles are salty in themselves and need no added salt. Feidong sits on the watershed between the Yangtze and Huai rivers (江淮分水岭), with lakes, paddy fields and ponds where loach thrive; a local saying praises 'turtledoves in the sky, loach in the river' (天上斑鸠，河里泥鳅).

How it is made

The loach are mostly wild and are not killed first. They are kept in clean water for several days, with a few drops of vegetable oil added so that they purge their guts. They then go into the pan with ginger, cooking wine, vinegar, chilli, star anise, broad-bean paste, spring onion and garlic and are fried until browned, with extra chilli for those who like it hot. Water is added, brought to a rapid boil and then simmered over medium heat until the broth turns thick; the noodles go in last for a brief boil over high heat. Anhui News describes the Feidong version as loach cooked with Feidong wheat noodles and local soybean or broad-bean paste.

Flavour and texture

The noodles come out coated in the thick broth, smooth and springy with plenty of bite. The loach flesh is tender enough to come away from the bone with a light press of the lips.

Where it comes from

A Feidong legend ties the dish to Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋), founder of the Ming dynasty, who is said to have rewarded his troops with Feidong noodles and to have praised a pot of loach noodles cooked for them by a local gentleman. The dish has appeared on CCTV programmes including A Bite of China (舌尖上的中国), and the Zhutang community has been named an Anhui rural-tourism food village on the strength of it.