Fish-Shaped Oat Noodles with Tomato 西红柿烩莜面鱼鱼

How the noodles are made

莜面 is milled from 莜麦, the naked oat that northern Shanxi shares with the rest of the Jin-dialect belt. It has no gluten to develop, so it cannot be pulled or stretched like wheat; the cook presses and rolls small pieces between the hands into short, tapered shapes, which is what 搓鱼鱼 means and why the noodles are named after little fish.

The shapes are then boiled before they meet the sauce. That places the dish with Shanxi's staple boiled noodles rather than with the steamed oat preparations — 栲栳栳 and 饸饹 — that most visitors meet first.

How it eats

Oat noodles are chewy and slightly nutty, with a grain flavour that wheat noodles do not have, and they hold a sauce well because of their rough surface. Braised with tomato, the bowl comes out tangy and savoury rather than spicy, the sauce being thick enough to sit on the noodles in the pan.

Disliking the tomato for being sour misses the point: the acid cuts through the density of oat flour, which is exactly why a braise rather than a plain dressing makes sense for this grain.

Local roots

Oat flour is a household staple in northern Shanxi and the wider Jin-dialect area that reaches into Inner Mongolia and northern Shaanxi, where the climate suits 莜麦 better than it suits rice. A family kitchen in that belt is expected to turn wheat, sorghum, bean, buckwheat and oat flours into dozens of shapes, and 搓鱼鱼 is one of them.

Tomato, by contrast, is a newer arrival in the northern kitchen. Braising a hand-shaped oat noodle with it is the kind of everyday adaptation that keeps a grain staple on the table in a modern household.

Ingredients and dietary notes

The two components named in the dish are 莜面 and 西红柿; whether egg, meat, onion or chilli joins them is not documented in the sources read. Oat flour is naturally wheat-free, but kitchens sometimes blend it with wheat flour to make it easier to shape, so ask before assuming.

Ask 是纯莜面吗 (is it all oat flour) if you avoid gluten, and 里面放鸡蛋了吗 or 放肉了吗 if you want to know what else is in the sauce. Because the noodles are shaped by hand, the bowl is labour-intensive and is usually made in smaller batches than a wheat noodle dish.

How to order it

Use the full name 西红柿烩莜面鱼鱼 at a northern Shanxi restaurant, or say 莜面鱼鱼 and ask how it is served that day — 是烩的还是蒸的 will tell you whether you are getting the braise or a steamed oat dish.

Ask 一碗多少钱 and 辣不辣. Since the sauce is cooked in a pan rather than ladled from a pot, this is one of the easier dishes for a kitchen to adjust: 少放西红柿 (less tomato) or 不放辣椒 (no chilli) can normally be honoured.

How to eat it

Eat it as a main dish, not a side: the oats are filling and the tomato sauce is the only thing on the plate, so order a cold vegetable or a small meat dish beside it rather than another starch.

Mix the noodles through the sauce before the first mouthful and finish the bowl while it is hot, because oat noodles stiffen as they cool. A spoon helps at the end, when the last of the sauce and the smallest 鱼鱼 are left behind.

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