Clam and Green Bean Noodles 蛤蜊芸豆面

Clam and Green Bean Noodles (蛤蜊芸豆面) are wheat noodles cooked with, or topped with, a savoury mix of clams and green beans, a noodle dish of Qingdao (青岛) that Qingdao News Network (青岛新闻网) calls a classic of the city.

How it is made

In the version Qingdao News Network published in 2020, green beans are cut into thin strips, and the clams are cleaned and boiled, then the meat is picked out and kept in the cooking liquid. Plain flour and a little salt make a stiff dough that rests for 10 minutes before it is cut into hand-rolled noodles. Scallion and ginger go into hot oil, the bean strips are stir-fried until about 70 per cent cooked, then salt, water and a little light soy sauce are added, followed by the clam meat together with its broth. Once this boils hard, the noodles are cooked in the pot.

How it is eaten

Qingdao Evening News (青岛晚报) presented a poured-sauce version as the most Qingdao of summer noodles for the "sanfu" (三伏, the hottest weeks of summer), when an old saying calls for dumplings in the first ten-day period and noodles in the second. The sauce combines pork, green beans, clams and scallion, sometimes with cucumber, potato or tomato. The pork is stir-fried with a little soy sauce, the beans are added, then water; the clams go in when it boils, and once they begin to open, beaten egg is poured round the pot and left to set. The boiled noodles are plunged into iced water, drained, and the sauce is poured over.

Flavour and texture

The clams give the dish a fresh, savoury taste, the green beans stay crisp, and the noodles are chewy.