Sweet-potato noodles with pork intestine 肥肠粉

How it is made

CCTV lists what Chengdu cooks take care over. The sweet-potato noodles are boiled until soft but not broken, and stay translucent enough that the core of each strand shows through the red chilli oil. The intestine is braised through with spices in advance, so it is smooth and chewy. The broth, which CCTV calls the soul of the bowl, is simmered with beef tallow, chilli and Sichuan pepper until it turns glossy red.

Chinese Wikipedia describes a second style. Intestine is the best-known topping for sour-and-spicy noodles, and it comes either sour and spicy (酸辣肥肠粉) or in plain broth (原汤肥肠粉), which is savoury rather than sour. There the stock is a thick white broth from boiling intestine and pig's ears, poured over vinegar, chilli oil, soy sauce and yacai (芽菜), a preserved vegetable, before the noodles go in. The bowl is finished with celery, coriander, datouya (大头芽), a Sichuan vegetable, and crisp-fried soybeans.

Flavour and texture

In CCTV's description, the braised aroma of the intestine mixes with its fat as you bite, and the red broth tastes numbing, spicy, fresh and fragrant. Wikipedia names sour and spicy as the main taste of the Baijia version, which is why it is also called suanla fen (酸辣粉).

How it is eaten

Chengdu people who know the dish order it with a freshly baked guokui (锅盔) flatbread, either dunked in the soup or eaten on the side. A line from a film quoted by CCTV sums up the affection for it: there is nothing a bowl of feichang fen cannot fix, and if there is, add an extra portion of intestine.