Hey guys, a few notes: 1. First comes to first, a recipe for fresh alkaline noodles. We went over this in our Sichuan/Taiwan-ish beef noodle soup video, so you can check it out in video form if you like (ruclips.net/video/AwEEoQzaIAg/видео.html ) but… first mix 200g of AP Flour with a half teaspoon salt and sodium carbonate (i.e. 碱面, but Kan Sui would also be ok). Drizzle in 90g of water bit by bit, then press it all into a ball. Rest for 30, then knead for ~8 minutes and rest for another 30. Pass through a pasta maker twice at the widest setting, twice at the second widest setting, and twice at the third widest setting… folding the dough in half after each pass. Cut into noodles. 2. As an aside, while it was a little difficult to get a nice thumbnail for, that Sichuan beef noodle soup recipe is one of the maximally-delicious things we’ve done on the channel. Fun video too. Definitely check it out if you haven’t yet. 3. While I was writing out the written recipe in the description, I realized that there might’ve been a sort of… fundamental absurdity… in this video ending up over ten minutes long lol. Like, we also could’ve easily sorted the whole thing in shorts form - “60g dried noodles, boiled, then mix with a tablespoon each lard, seasoned fish sauce, deep fried garlic, and a bit of scallion. So good.” I… apologize for my gassiness. 4. Astute observers might notice that the noodles in Meizhou looked a bit visually different to our noodles - at the shop, they have a sort of ‘curl’ to them. The noodle vendors at the market in Meizhou will carry both those ‘curled’ noodles as well as the fresh alkaline noodles that 5:55. While both are tasty, the former are cheaper - if I had to guess, they likely have something in them to help them keep longer? 5. Regarding Hakka noodles around the world, I know we might’ve been a bit bold to include Kuyteav Phenm Penh in with all the rest. According to, like, actual Cambodians, it’s generally considered a Teochew dish. That said, the dish features all the hallmarks of Yanmian, and in my - admittedly quite ignorant - opinion, I think it might be likely that the ‘Kuyteav’ is more of a linguistic connection to Teochew than a culinary one (after all, in Thailand at least, *all* sorts of noodle dishes are labeled by the Teochew-derived word ‘Guidiao’, i.e. Kway Teow). 6. I’m a bit more confident in the Sigyet Khauk Swe, as we showed our Myanmar friend a picture of Yanmian and she quickly retorted that “oh yeah, those’re totally the same thing”. As an aside, if you’re curious about Myanmar cuisine, definitely check out her Instagram - she does pop-ups around the world and the like: instagram.com/_ladygoogoo_/ 7. Regarding what might be the *most* famous “Hakka Noodles” in the world, the Indian style… I’ve read a few articles on the subject, but I’m not 100% sure what the story is there. It seems to be from Calcutta originally, but obviously they’re a much more radical departure from Meizhou than the various Southeast Asian or even Mauritian variants. I’d guess that it was derived from one of the forms of Kolo Mee in Malaysia, and adjusted for Indian tastes? Not sure. The Hakkas in India are certainly an interesting story, but trying to find solid information there feels a little bit like chasing ghosts. It feels like there’s been a lot of history lost there, but then again, I’m only searching in English - perhaps there’s better information out there in Hindi? That’s all I can think of for now. Might edit a few more notes in a bit :)
You might have better luck searching for information in Bengali. Bengal is fiercely proud of their language, and were more so the the years prior, so a lot of this information might be locked out in Bengali Vs Hindi, where Hindi is looked on as more of a imposed language. Edit: Indian Chinese food is so far removed from it's supposed source that it would be interesting to see what y'all think about it.
@@mayurmahale3049 what do you even mean by imposed language? The majority of the Indian population speaks hindi and not because of some kind of imposition.
As a person from Sarawak, Borneo, I am very happy to see one of my favourite cooking channels to mention mee kolo (although it should be kolo mee 干捞面 / 哥羅麵 ) . The difference with hakka mee (in this video) is the use of deep fried shallot and it's oil (with lard of course)
Thanks for the correction! I blame English language Wikipedia, they have it listed as "Mee Kolo" ;) Would have loved to be able to swing over to Sarawak, Pontianak, and Bangka to be able to *really* properly tell the story of this dish... but hey
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Sarawak people call it "kolo mee" as they follow the original name, directly transliterated from hakka itself. "Mee kolo" comes from trying to adapt it to malay grammar, as in malay the modifier should after the noun, not before. Sometimes people on the peninsula use that flipped version as it's technically more "proper" in terms of grammar, but Sarawak people stick to the original
This actually reminds me of pasta aglio e olio. Both have fried garlic and are topped with fresh herbs (parsley for the pasta and scallions for these noodles), and then the pasta has olive oil instead of lard and parmesan provides kind of the same umami funk as fish sauce. So I guess to answer your question from the beginning Italy is the one other cuisine that's thought of a similar combination lol
@@hmhbanal I'm curious, I've never had Colatura di alici... is it basically the same thing as Southeast Asian fish sauce? The processes seem quite similar but I don't know enough about fish sauce production to make any sort of conclusions :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Just visited Cetara by the Amalfi Coast this summer. Yes, colatura (drippings) di (of) alici (anchovies) pretty much fish sauce but made with anchovies. It's practically the same but cleaner in taste...? Certa in HK sells it online. Pricey though, as it's a fancy luxury product. I guess garum/ fish sauce fell out of favour in Italy after Rome fell, so only southern Italy uses it in their cooking now. I'd say it was pretty ubiquitous along the Amalfi Coast. Yeah pasta con colatura di alici is practically the Italian version of Hakka noodles!
I’m part of the Hakka diaspora and I’ve never even heard of these noodles. It was really interesting to find out that this dish influenced many other dry noodles… kolo mee and wan tan mee are among my favourites, so I definitely have to try this!!! As a matter of fact I just had kolo mee for breakfast today 😋 Thank you so much for all your informative videos!
Love seeing you guys cover more Hakka dishes! My dad's side is Hakka (we're Chinese Jamaican) and a lot of dishes were lost through my great-grandmother so I appreciate seeing more recipes.
@@Athrunwong Yes we do have quite amout of Chinese and tvey have influenced our culture. The thing is Chinese in Jamaica just say they are Jamaicans, they only mention it in such cases when in relation to something as thus video. Motto of Jamaica is " Out of many , one nation ".
Looks super! Lard is good as a flavorful oil with great mouth feel. I also use bacon grease and, my favorite, tallow. Tallow and fried garlic is outrageously good!
In Indonesia, Specifically Bandung, this is also called Yamin. To be more specific Yamin Asin (Salty yanmien). It is served almost identical with the OG yanmien. Salty oiled-noodle served with the soup that consists of meat, meatballs, some other offal cuts, and green veggies. Sometimes they add kecap manis to the noodle (sweet soy sauce, specifically kecap anggur brand) to make yamin manis (sweet yanmien). But instead of adding the fried garlic, they commonly use minced chicken/pork and add the garlic infused chicken oil/lard to the noodle mix. It's really cool how the Hakka people brought their home dishes all over southeast asia and brought some local touch to it. Always love it when you know the history of the food you're eating and where it originated. For the love of noodles all kinds and shapes!
In most sumatra area like North Sumatra and Riau at my Homeland its called as Mie pangsit or wantaa mee ( derived from wonton mien) . It's also served like this plus charshu pork and wonton soup ( they do with chicken if you want so halal mode btw) , they use different regional brand soy sauce which is far more delicious than the national brand one.
Fellow Bandung-ese here. Plenty of good yamin stall here, and you can either go pork or no pork, you will always bound to find something good. Mie Baso Banda is definitely my go-to for chicken yamien since I was 4 (30 now). If I want pork stuffs I can always order Bakmi Aloi or Mie Rica. In short, if any of you want to visit Bandung and craving for some noodle dishes, you will not be disappointed.
Here in Toronto, Hakka restaurants are pretty common. As I understand it, the food is actually usually Indian-Chinese, developed in South Asia and when Hakka folks migrated here, they brought that style with them. Fascinating to see all these different diasporic food developments!!
Slight correction - Hakka INDIAN restaurants are common in Toronto. :) Seems like such a nit picky update, but it actually means a lot to indicate what type of Hakka because the food is very different. It also helps remove the confusion because soooooooooo many people in Toronto think "Hakka" means Chinese Indian. When I tell people I am Hakka I have to go thru a whole educational session on how I am not Indian and what a Hakka is.
If people can't get lard or pork because they're in a strictly kosher or halal area, duck fat and chicken fat are both becoming more readily available commercially. Rendered beef or sheep fat might also do the trick with the addition of a beefy or sleepy flavor. (I'd actually say duck fat is the closest to lard in taste profile.) Also, that garlic oil (or onion oil made the same way) is generally regarded as ok in a low fodmap diet, since it's the water soluble bits that are stomach upsetting, and those bits are destroyed in the frying process.
Thank you! My husband is autistic and can't handle lard, but he *does* like chicken and when I tried this with chicken fat & bits of chicken instead of pork he loved it. I appreciate you sharing alternative thoughts!
One of things I love about your Chanel is the history behind the dishes. It's just not a case of this is what we are cooking. Have you found anything you WONT eat Chris? 🤣🤣🤣
The way my head whipped round when I heard si chet khao swe! That actually makes so much sense but it's also so cool to have burmese food mentioned every now and then :)
If you're ever in Selangor, Malaysia, definitely go for the Sarawak Kolo Mee in the morning at Restoran Gembira in Taman Megah, Petaling Jaya; the noodles are satisfyingly chewy, and I chase it with pickled green chili to pair with the savoury flavors. The kopitiam itself has an amazing selection of other food vendors like economy rice and fried rice, it's the first place I would head to when I visit home.
Love this! I discovered fried minced garlic at Asian stores here a while back and got my mom hooked on it. The fried sliced shallots are a must buy too 😁
I'm not sure if the Italians did it first, but pasta with fried garlic, and some of the olive oil that it was fried in, plus spinach and seasoning is a *VERY* common Italian dish.
It's nice to know more about the OG Yanmian. Kolo mee is one of my favourite foods and there's a place in Singapore that does a version that I particularly like, by way of China and then Malaysia
Hakka cuisine is so under the radar these days, but thanks to you guys, I wish to learn more about this type of cuisine. Cause I would love to learn and cook some Hakka dishes.
The soup is so similar to a dish in Sabah called Sang Nyuk Mian (生肉面). The noodles are usually Oil noodles, Flat rice noodles or Vermicelli Noodles. You can eat noodles dry (usually drizzle in some kind of soy sauce base sweet sauce most likely is kicap manis) soup is on the separate bowl or in the soup. But I am not sure if it's related to 腌面 but the soup is sure similar. Expect the white pepper for the broth, but you can add it when they served it to you and for the veg it's usually choy sum (the taller kind). Note, the meat is cooked even though the name says otherwise.
As a person who lives in the southwest US it’s crazy to me that other parts of the US don’t have lard easily available. Lard is such an important part of Mexican food and since Mexican culture is so intermixed with American here my family always had it on hand. P.S. we’ve always used snow cap brand lard super neutral flavor and widely available wherever I’ve shopped.
Agree wholeheartedly! Lard is easily available here in Yuma and I try to convince people that it is actually better for you than butter and it makes things taste soooo much better to boot. I can find it in bulk at the Mexican grocery store.
That garlic over oiled noodle with sides of hearty and comforting soup take a local taste here with bakso (meatball) soup as sides. Aside from replacing the pork with beef shank and tripe, another variation were the use of chicken oil instead of lard, and the option on noodle, which range from normal variety of flour noodle, rice noodle (kway teow), and vermicelli. A rather famous old vendor which do that style here in Jakarta Chinatown namely "Bakso Akiaw"
@@scsherman207 i don't get what you are trying to say Sherman. Sure noodle exist everywhere, and everyone had garlic, but S.E.Asia were known to have sizeable Hakka community, so i dunno what you're trying to imply.
@@scsherman207 bro, argue with the channel for that, not me. They're the one making Hakka garlic oil noodle video. You're barking at the wrong tree. Other people were sharing their local takes on the noodle, and here you are being salty and try to argue with me for some reason.
My paternal grandmother is Hakka, but she's never cooked anything Hakka (maybe just muichoy kauyuk, to some yeung tofu, but those dishes are pretty much within the basic Cantonese repertoire anyways today... Hakka cuisine is so fascinating in SE Asia, with a healthy dose of organic cultural intermingling & a natural evolution of traditional dishes. In Hong Kong, the onslaught of mainstream Cantonese cuisine forces similar regional cuisines like Hakka & Teochew to just become basic pastiches of the original dishes. Also tried "Hakka noodles" in Mumbai. LOL there was nothing remotely Hakka about it. Delicious though. Would love to know more about contemporary Hakka cuisine & how it's evolved in Hakka regions nowadays.
Kolok mee is my go-to favourite choice for breakfast! In comparison to the Hakka noodles shown, we use fried shallots, using lard as the oil, instead of garlic, and often accompanied with the charsiu. There are couple versions here, namely the white, soy sauce and the red one (from the charsiu sauce). Very ridiculously addictive, though have to cut down consumption due to my health, sadly. There’s also kampua mee which is the Foochow version of it. Pretty similar and between the two the terms used interchangeably, which at times caused quite a stir on social media at times, but among it’s difference to kolok mee, is the broader flat noodles (pretty similar to the ones you used) is used, as opposed to smaller curly noodles of kolok mee. Also, there’s the flat noodles version of Teochew origin which we called mee pok.
I'm from Trinidad and we have a fairly large Chinese population. Most smaller restaurants go with Westernized Cantonese Dishes, but Hakka chains are getting more popular as the population grows.
There's an absolutely fantastic Chinese restaurant in (old) Cambridge called Hakka, because the guy is, well, Hakka. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's probably the best Chinese food I've ever had. If you're ever visiting, I'd 100% make sure to visit. The seafood is out of this world.
What's most interesting to me is how closely that noodle dish follows the components of ramen, or I suppose in this case mazemen dishes. Noodles, an aroma oil (lard), and a tare (fish sauce), and toppings (fried garlic). The basic framework is definitely there, interesting to see how this so many dishes can be distilled to these steps.
I was born and raised in the Hakkanese neighborhood in BKK. Not hard to find a Hakkanese restaurant, but good one is rare. I managed to find one in Outer Richmond in San Francisco, quite good!
Being from Texas sourcing alkaline noodles outside of high quality (and expensive) ramen noodle packs or making them myself has been a headache for years, but I recently made a discovery that I had to share in case it applies to anyone else. Looking on the ingredients list of package noodles is how I figure if something has any alkalinity to it or if it's just wheat and water, and what I finally found a strange pattern of is that instead of listing an actual chemical name or even just "alkalizing agent" in the ingredients list, a decent number of noodles list "mineral salts"! This is hilarious, and I can only assume it's to appease to some "natural food" sensibility, but now I've been able to reliably source actual quality alkaline noodles even at my local western food market (shoutouts to HEB), so thank you chemistry 101 from 10 years ago and RUclips cooking videos for helping me put those pieces together 😋
If you need an easy source of lard, buy a pork shoulder and make Kenji Lopez-Alt's sous vide or oven carnitas. The leftover lard has a lightly citrusy and floral flavor that is really nice.
This one looks good! Can't wait to try it! During the last few months of last year, I was enjoying your egg drop soup recipe almost daily. I was cutting calories at the time. I found that the soup was very filling for the portion I made. Cheers!
Can confirm a thriving Chinese community in Trinidad and Tobago for hundreds of years and a local version of Chinese food that is out of this world delicious :)
It would be know who it has involved in Trinidad compared to the one in Mauritius. As both chinese communities seem to come to the same region . Bol réservé , hakian , boulette and mine frite are the local version of this chinese cuisine. Yep they have french name because we speak french and creole
I wonder if San Francisco garlic noodles are related to Hakka Noodles in some way. The SF noodles were created by Vietnamese immigrants, but the combination of, noodle + garlic + fishy umami, makes them interestingly close
In fact, a lot of the so-called Vietnamese immigrants in America are Chinese Vietnamese, which immigrated from South China to Vietnam some two hundred years ago. They brought their food culture to Vietnam and then USA.
im actually half cantonese ( guangdong ) and half hakka actually so yes of course hakka noodles is always a must when i see one and also im from malaysia too
Back in the day, I had a classmate who's Toishan speaking grandma used to render out chicken fat from the skin and then top noodles with a mix of deep fried garlic and chicken cracklings, is that a spin on Hakka noodles or some totally unrelated thing or just some out there invention?
That Garlic oil taste like heaven when you put a little of it into noodle/rice noodle soup. Seriously you can't go back to having ordinary noodle soup after you have them
@chinese cooking demystified Really wanna try that recipe :)) Had to do a double take when you introduced your garlic though. Garlic cloves here in Europe are... like a quarter the size of yours. So could you please include an weighted amount in Grams?
Here in Texas the place to get lard is at the ubiquitous Mexican supermarkets, where they sell fresh lard in tubs. Cheaper and far better than the Anglo supermarket lard by Armour, which is full of chemicals.
Funny how halfway around the world the Italians have a similar dish called "spaghetti a aiolio". Main difference is they don't fry the garlic until it's crispy (usually)
Love cooking with Epic pasture raised lard. They had it on sale at a local store for 1.99 per 16oz jar. I bought a case. Wish I'd bought 2. How long will the fried garlic last?
Sounds like a Chinese cultural analogue of the real pasta alfredo! Butter - Lard/Fish Sauce Parmigiano - Garlic Spaghetti - Noodles Easy and quick comfort food!
The Hakka people introduced a localised version of their cuisine to Calcutta, India. Today Indo-Chinese is by far the most popular "foreign" cuisine in the country.
Any neutral oil would do for making the fried garlic actually, that's what most commercial ones do in my part of the world (prob the seasoned fish sauce part too, if you swap it for soy). You can also probably play around with drizzling some seed/nut oils as a finisher, sesame oil is a staple in many styles of Chinese cooking.
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. First comes to first, a recipe for fresh alkaline noodles. We went over this in our Sichuan/Taiwan-ish beef noodle soup video, so you can check it out in video form if you like (ruclips.net/video/AwEEoQzaIAg/видео.html ) but… first mix 200g of AP Flour with a half teaspoon salt and sodium carbonate (i.e. 碱面, but Kan Sui would also be ok). Drizzle in 90g of water bit by bit, then press it all into a ball. Rest for 30, then knead for ~8 minutes and rest for another 30. Pass through a pasta maker twice at the widest setting, twice at the second widest setting, and twice at the third widest setting… folding the dough in half after each pass. Cut into noodles.
2. As an aside, while it was a little difficult to get a nice thumbnail for, that Sichuan beef noodle soup recipe is one of the maximally-delicious things we’ve done on the channel. Fun video too. Definitely check it out if you haven’t yet.
3. While I was writing out the written recipe in the description, I realized that there might’ve been a sort of… fundamental absurdity… in this video ending up over ten minutes long lol. Like, we also could’ve easily sorted the whole thing in shorts form - “60g dried noodles, boiled, then mix with a tablespoon each lard, seasoned fish sauce, deep fried garlic, and a bit of scallion. So good.” I… apologize for my gassiness.
4. Astute observers might notice that the noodles in Meizhou looked a bit visually different to our noodles - at the shop, they have a sort of ‘curl’ to them. The noodle vendors at the market in Meizhou will carry both those ‘curled’ noodles as well as the fresh alkaline noodles that 5:55. While both are tasty, the former are cheaper - if I had to guess, they likely have something in them to help them keep longer?
5. Regarding Hakka noodles around the world, I know we might’ve been a bit bold to include Kuyteav Phenm Penh in with all the rest. According to, like, actual Cambodians, it’s generally considered a Teochew dish. That said, the dish features all the hallmarks of Yanmian, and in my - admittedly quite ignorant - opinion, I think it might be likely that the ‘Kuyteav’ is more of a linguistic connection to Teochew than a culinary one (after all, in Thailand at least, *all* sorts of noodle dishes are labeled by the Teochew-derived word ‘Guidiao’, i.e. Kway Teow).
6. I’m a bit more confident in the Sigyet Khauk Swe, as we showed our Myanmar friend a picture of Yanmian and she quickly retorted that “oh yeah, those’re totally the same thing”. As an aside, if you’re curious about Myanmar cuisine, definitely check out her Instagram - she does pop-ups around the world and the like: instagram.com/_ladygoogoo_/
7. Regarding what might be the *most* famous “Hakka Noodles” in the world, the Indian style… I’ve read a few articles on the subject, but I’m not 100% sure what the story is there. It seems to be from Calcutta originally, but obviously they’re a much more radical departure from Meizhou than the various Southeast Asian or even Mauritian variants. I’d guess that it was derived from one of the forms of Kolo Mee in Malaysia, and adjusted for Indian tastes? Not sure. The Hakkas in India are certainly an interesting story, but trying to find solid information there feels a little bit like chasing ghosts. It feels like there’s been a lot of history lost there, but then again, I’m only searching in English - perhaps there’s better information out there in Hindi?
That’s all I can think of for now. Might edit a few more notes in a bit :)
we can cheet it if we use butter or lard if you can find it and Worcestershire and if you can get it squid thai sauce .
You might have better luck searching for information in Bengali. Bengal is fiercely proud of their language, and were more so the the years prior, so a lot of this information might be locked out in Bengali Vs Hindi, where Hindi is looked on as more of a imposed language.
Edit: Indian Chinese food is so far removed from it's supposed source that it would be interesting to see what y'all think about it.
i veganise all my dishes so would love to see you do one like me
Hi - do you have any suggestions to those of us who cant eat pork products?
@@mayurmahale3049 what do you even mean by imposed language? The majority of the Indian population speaks hindi and not because of some kind of imposition.
As a person from Sarawak, Borneo, I am very happy to see one of my favourite cooking channels to mention mee kolo (although it should be kolo mee 干捞面 / 哥羅麵 ) . The difference with hakka mee (in this video) is the use of deep fried shallot and it's oil (with lard of course)
Thanks for the correction! I blame English language Wikipedia, they have it listed as "Mee Kolo" ;)
Would have loved to be able to swing over to Sarawak, Pontianak, and Bangka to be able to *really* properly tell the story of this dish... but hey
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Sarawak people call it "kolo mee" as they follow the original name, directly transliterated from hakka itself. "Mee kolo" comes from trying to adapt it to malay grammar, as in malay the modifier should after the noun, not before. Sometimes people on the peninsula use that flipped version as it's technically more "proper" in terms of grammar, but Sarawak people stick to the original
@@diamdante I thought "mee" for noodles only makes sense in Hokkien or Teochew, and it seems that Sarawak Hakka people use this pronunciation too?
Malaysians also use the name mee kolok the halal version is very delicious as well.
ruclips.net/video/Rg-xT-58GTk/видео.html
This actually reminds me of pasta aglio e olio. Both have fried garlic and are topped with fresh herbs (parsley for the pasta and scallions for these noodles), and then the pasta has olive oil instead of lard and parmesan provides kind of the same umami funk as fish sauce. So I guess to answer your question from the beginning Italy is the one other cuisine that's thought of a similar combination lol
Exactly my thought, really fun to see two completely different cultures come up with the same flavour combination
There’s also an Italian pasta cuisine “pasta con colatura di alici” or pasta with fish (anchovies) sauce.
@@hmhbanal I'm curious, I've never had Colatura di alici... is it basically the same thing as Southeast Asian fish sauce? The processes seem quite similar but I don't know enough about fish sauce production to make any sort of conclusions :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Just visited Cetara by the Amalfi Coast this summer. Yes, colatura (drippings) di (of) alici (anchovies) pretty much fish sauce but made with anchovies. It's practically the same but cleaner in taste...? Certa in HK sells it online. Pricey though, as it's a fancy luxury product. I guess garum/ fish sauce fell out of favour in Italy after Rome fell, so only southern Italy uses it in their cooking now. I'd say it was pretty ubiquitous along the Amalfi Coast.
Yeah pasta con colatura di alici is practically the Italian version of Hakka noodles!
@@ChineseCookingDemystified I would say Colatura di alici is most similar to Red Boat fish sauce. It originates all the way back to Roman garum.
I’m part of the Hakka diaspora and I’ve never even heard of these noodles. It was really interesting to find out that this dish influenced many other dry noodles… kolo mee and wan tan mee are among my favourites, so I definitely have to try this!!! As a matter of fact I just had kolo mee for breakfast today 😋 Thank you so much for all your informative videos!
this made me smile
Love seeing you guys cover more Hakka dishes! My dad's side is Hakka (we're Chinese Jamaican) and a lot of dishes were lost through my great-grandmother so I appreciate seeing more recipes.
What…the…f….there’s Chinese in Jamaica…?!?!
@@Athrunwong a surprising amount, actually
@@Athrunwong it's literally mentioned in the video
@@Athrunwong Yes we do have quite amout of Chinese and tvey have influenced our culture. The thing is Chinese in Jamaica just say they are Jamaicans, they only mention it in such cases when in relation to something as thus video. Motto of Jamaica is " Out of many , one nation ".
Looks super! Lard is good as a flavorful oil with great mouth feel. I also use bacon grease and, my favorite, tallow. Tallow and fried garlic is outrageously good!
In Indonesia, Specifically Bandung, this is also called Yamin. To be more specific Yamin Asin (Salty yanmien). It is served almost identical with the OG yanmien. Salty oiled-noodle served with the soup that consists of meat, meatballs, some other offal cuts, and green veggies. Sometimes they add kecap manis to the noodle (sweet soy sauce, specifically kecap anggur brand) to make yamin manis (sweet yanmien). But instead of adding the fried garlic, they commonly use minced chicken/pork and add the garlic infused chicken oil/lard to the noodle mix. It's really cool how the Hakka people brought their home dishes all over southeast asia and brought some local touch to it. Always love it when you know the history of the food you're eating and where it originated. For the love of noodles all kinds and shapes!
In most sumatra area like North Sumatra and Riau at my Homeland its called as Mie pangsit or wantaa mee ( derived from wonton mien) . It's also served like this plus charshu pork and wonton soup ( they do with chicken if you want so halal mode btw) , they use different regional brand soy sauce which is far more delicious than the national brand one.
Fellow Bandung-ese here. Plenty of good yamin stall here, and you can either go pork or no pork, you will always bound to find something good. Mie Baso Banda is definitely my go-to for chicken yamien since I was 4 (30 now). If I want pork stuffs I can always order Bakmi Aloi or Mie Rica. In short, if any of you want to visit Bandung and craving for some noodle dishes, you will not be disappointed.
Here in Toronto, Hakka restaurants are pretty common. As I understand it, the food is actually usually Indian-Chinese, developed in South Asia and when Hakka folks migrated here, they brought that style with them. Fascinating to see all these different diasporic food developments!!
Slight correction - Hakka INDIAN restaurants are common in Toronto. :)
Seems like such a nit picky update, but it actually means a lot to indicate what type of Hakka because the food is very different. It also helps remove the confusion because soooooooooo many people in Toronto think "Hakka" means Chinese Indian. When I tell people I am Hakka I have to go thru a whole educational session on how I am not Indian and what a Hakka is.
If people can't get lard or pork because they're in a strictly kosher or halal area, duck fat and chicken fat are both becoming more readily available commercially. Rendered beef or sheep fat might also do the trick with the addition of a beefy or sleepy flavor. (I'd actually say duck fat is the closest to lard in taste profile.)
Also, that garlic oil (or onion oil made the same way) is generally regarded as ok in a low fodmap diet, since it's the water soluble bits that are stomach upsetting, and those bits are destroyed in the frying process.
Thank you! My husband is autistic and can't handle lard, but he *does* like chicken and when I tried this with chicken fat & bits of chicken instead of pork he loved it. I appreciate you sharing alternative thoughts!
I suspect this counts for the majority of the "no lard" votes lol.
I had these noodles in Meizhou in 2019, and have been trying to recreate them ever since! They're so good! I'll try your recipe next.
One of things I love about your Chanel is the history behind the dishes.
It's just not a case of this is what we are cooking.
Have you found anything you WONT eat Chris? 🤣🤣🤣
The way my head whipped round when I heard si chet khao swe! That actually makes so much sense but it's also so cool to have burmese food mentioned every now and then :)
If you're ever in Selangor, Malaysia, definitely go for the Sarawak Kolo Mee in the morning at Restoran Gembira in Taman Megah, Petaling Jaya; the noodles are satisfyingly chewy, and I chase it with pickled green chili to pair with the savoury flavors. The kopitiam itself has an amazing selection of other food vendors like economy rice and fried rice, it's the first place I would head to when I visit home.
Fun fact " mine touni / mine tout nu " meaning in Mauritius french creole is naked noodles as compared to the mine frite / hakka fried noodles .
Love this! I discovered fried minced garlic at Asian stores here a while back and got my mom hooked on it. The fried sliced shallots are a must buy too 😁
Came for the recipe, stayed for the history. You guys are just so awesome.
I'm not sure if the Italians did it first, but pasta with fried garlic, and some of the olive oil that it was fried in, plus spinach and seasoning is a *VERY* common Italian dish.
It's nice to know more about the OG Yanmian. Kolo mee is one of my favourite foods and there's a place in Singapore that does a version that I particularly like, by way of China and then Malaysia
Hakka cuisine is so under the radar these days, but thanks to you guys, I wish to learn more about this type of cuisine. Cause I would love to learn and cook some Hakka dishes.
The soup is so similar to a dish in Sabah called Sang Nyuk Mian (生肉面). The noodles are usually Oil noodles, Flat rice noodles or Vermicelli Noodles. You can eat noodles dry (usually drizzle in some kind of soy sauce base sweet sauce most likely is kicap manis) soup is on the separate bowl or in the soup. But I am not sure if it's related to 腌面 but the soup is sure similar. Expect the white pepper for the broth, but you can add it when they served it to you and for the veg it's usually choy sum (the taller kind).
Note, the meat is cooked even though the name says otherwise.
Yeah I always wonder what the Sang Nyuk means. It's definitely not raw so why call it Sang Nyuk?
As a person who lives in the southwest US it’s crazy to me that other parts of the US don’t have lard easily available. Lard is such an important part of Mexican food and since Mexican culture is so intermixed with American here my family always had it on hand.
P.S. we’ve always used snow cap brand lard super neutral flavor and widely available wherever I’ve shopped.
Agree wholeheartedly! Lard is easily available here in Yuma and I try to convince people that it is actually better for you than butter and it makes things taste soooo much better to boot. I can find it in bulk at the Mexican grocery store.
Because wypipo.
& the FDA convinced North Americans that margarine is healthier than butter & lard was for poor people.
That garlic over oiled noodle with sides of hearty and comforting soup take a local taste here with bakso (meatball) soup as sides.
Aside from replacing the pork with beef shank and tripe, another variation were the use of chicken oil instead of lard, and the option on noodle, which range from normal variety of flour noodle, rice noodle (kway teow), and vermicelli.
A rather famous old vendor which do that style here in Jakarta Chinatown namely "Bakso Akiaw"
@@scsherman207 i don't get what you are trying to say Sherman.
Sure noodle exist everywhere, and everyone had garlic, but S.E.Asia were known to have sizeable Hakka community, so i dunno what you're trying to imply.
@@scsherman207 bro, argue with the channel for that, not me. They're the one making Hakka garlic oil noodle video. You're barking at the wrong tree.
Other people were sharing their local takes on the noodle, and here you are being salty and try to argue with me for some reason.
My paternal grandmother is Hakka, but she's never cooked anything Hakka (maybe just muichoy kauyuk, to some yeung tofu, but those dishes are pretty much within the basic Cantonese repertoire anyways today...
Hakka cuisine is so fascinating in SE Asia, with a healthy dose of organic cultural intermingling & a natural evolution of traditional dishes. In Hong Kong, the onslaught of mainstream Cantonese cuisine forces similar regional cuisines like Hakka & Teochew to just become basic pastiches of the original dishes.
Also tried "Hakka noodles" in Mumbai. LOL there was nothing remotely Hakka about it. Delicious though.
Would love to know more about contemporary Hakka cuisine & how it's evolved in Hakka regions nowadays.
Kolok mee is my go-to favourite choice for breakfast! In comparison to the Hakka noodles shown, we use fried shallots, using lard as the oil, instead of garlic, and often accompanied with the charsiu. There are couple versions here, namely the white, soy sauce and the red one (from the charsiu sauce). Very ridiculously addictive, though have to cut down consumption due to my health, sadly.
There’s also kampua mee which is the Foochow version of it. Pretty similar and between the two the terms used interchangeably, which at times caused quite a stir on social media at times, but among it’s difference to kolok mee, is the broader flat noodles (pretty similar to the ones you used) is used, as opposed to smaller curly noodles of kolok mee. Also, there’s the flat noodles version of Teochew origin which we called mee pok.
I'm from Trinidad and we have a fairly large Chinese population. Most smaller restaurants go with Westernized Cantonese Dishes, but Hakka chains are getting more popular as the population grows.
As always, I love watching your videos of some mighty fine dishes that I try to make as often as I can. Hakka noodles next!!!!
I always love the world history and culinary history with these videos!
I never knew when I come here if I'm going to love the cooking or the puppy more. Usually it's a tie, like today
I'm so grateful to be from Malaysia and being able to have Hakka Mee everyday 🤤🤤🤤
There's an absolutely fantastic Chinese restaurant in (old) Cambridge called Hakka, because the guy is, well, Hakka. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's probably the best Chinese food I've ever had. If you're ever visiting, I'd 100% make sure to visit. The seafood is out of this world.
Thank you for another great video. Love to have more Chinese breakfast ideas. Please keep them coming.
Okay yeah... you've convinced me. I've got to try this. Especially that soup!
As for Seejat Khao Sway (Burmese variant) , we mostly use garlic oil instead of lard.
learned this recipe from another yt channel (martin's cuisine) a while back and it's been one of my go tos since it's so easy to make
What's most interesting to me is how closely that noodle dish follows the components of ramen, or I suppose in this case mazemen dishes. Noodles, an aroma oil (lard), and a tare (fish sauce), and toppings (fried garlic). The basic framework is definitely there, interesting to see how this so many dishes can be distilled to these steps.
I was born and raised in the Hakkanese neighborhood in BKK. Not hard to find a Hakkanese restaurant, but good one is rare. I managed to find one in Outer Richmond in San Francisco, quite good!
Hi my friend…I’m from Malaysia..thank for your sharing…my favourite ❤️
Oooh cooking the fish sauce is genius. Can’t wait to try this!
I live with and sometimes cook for vegans. Is there a vegan substitute for the lard? Can I use the garlic oil?
yes or peanut oil it tastes diffrent but sure good
Fried rice using lard is fantastic!! Fragrant and yummy 😋
Yep, this is exactly what I’d like to whip up when I’m craving some noodles but don’t want to prepare too much. Definitely a keeper! 👌
Being from Texas sourcing alkaline noodles outside of high quality (and expensive) ramen noodle packs or making them myself has been a headache for years, but I recently made a discovery that I had to share in case it applies to anyone else. Looking on the ingredients list of package noodles is how I figure if something has any alkalinity to it or if it's just wheat and water, and what I finally found a strange pattern of is that instead of listing an actual chemical name or even just "alkalizing agent" in the ingredients list, a decent number of noodles list "mineral salts"! This is hilarious, and I can only assume it's to appease to some "natural food" sensibility, but now I've been able to reliably source actual quality alkaline noodles even at my local western food market (shoutouts to HEB), so thank you chemistry 101 from 10 years ago and RUclips cooking videos for helping me put those pieces together 😋
In brazilian cuisine we have Macarrão Alho e Óleo, our version of cooked spaghetti fried with minced garlic and parsley
Yasss Hakka Cuisine is the best! Thank you for the backstory of our people!
Ah, the origin of bakmi and yamien. Never miss a good opportunity for a good bowl of bakmi here in Indonesia.
If you need an easy source of lard, buy a pork shoulder and make Kenji Lopez-Alt's sous vide or oven carnitas. The leftover lard has a lightly citrusy and floral flavor that is really nice.
This one looks good! Can't wait to try it! During the last few months of last year, I was enjoying your egg drop soup recipe almost daily. I was cutting calories at the time. I found that the soup was very filling for the portion I made. Cheers!
Best noodles ever ,so simple !
So simple and looks SOOO good.
You guys are amazing thank you
Will try
loved the history lesson!
i use garlic oil to fry old rice. i just make a thin flat layer of the rice and fry it (undisturbed) in the oil until it's crunchy
Excellent!
1:27 is there any link for this old map
oh you mentioned burmese fried garlic noodles!! always ate them in my childhood, delicious :O
Have you ever tackled dongbei food before? On my lone trip to China, I encountered this cuisine and fell in love.
Can confirm a thriving Chinese community in Trinidad and Tobago for hundreds of years and a local version of Chinese food that is out of this world delicious :)
It would be know who it has involved in Trinidad compared to the one in Mauritius. As both chinese communities seem to come to the same region . Bol réservé , hakian , boulette and mine frite are the local version of this chinese cuisine. Yep they have french name because we speak french and creole
I can never watch a video for more than 2 min . I watched almost this whole video 📸📷
I got distracted 😂😂.
Where can I get the unique lard camping jar like the one in the video?
Where on earth did you get a square pan? I have never seen that. Wild....
I wonder if San Francisco garlic noodles are related to Hakka Noodles in some way. The SF noodles were created by Vietnamese immigrants, but the combination of, noodle + garlic + fishy umami, makes them interestingly close
In fact, a lot of the so-called Vietnamese immigrants in America are Chinese Vietnamese, which immigrated from South China to Vietnam some two hundred years ago. They brought their food culture to Vietnam and then USA.
做得很好
love the big cleaver being used to chope garlic
im actually half cantonese ( guangdong ) and half hakka actually so yes of course hakka noodles is always a must when i see one and also im from malaysia too
Doña Ángela, referente culinario internacional :3
Back in the day, I had a classmate who's Toishan speaking grandma used to render out chicken fat from the skin and then top noodles with a mix of deep fried garlic and chicken cracklings, is that a spin on Hakka noodles or some totally unrelated thing or just some out there invention?
I think this is that trick where the inosinate from the fish sauce is boosted by the MSG. Either way, it tastes amazing.
Did you say goji leaves for the soup? I live in the US, but just planted goji.
Hi, I just knew jour channel. Do you have Bak kwa - dry meat introduction?
That Garlic oil taste like heaven when you put a little of it into noodle/rice noodle soup. Seriously you can't go back to having ordinary noodle soup after you have them
@chinese cooking demystified Really wanna try that recipe :)) Had to do a double take when you introduced your garlic though. Garlic cloves here in Europe are... like a quarter the size of yours. So could you please include an weighted amount in Grams?
Omg so this is the ancestor of my favourite dish "bakmi"
Here in Texas the place to get lard is at the ubiquitous Mexican supermarkets, where they sell fresh lard in tubs. Cheaper and far better than the Anglo supermarket lard by Armour, which is full of chemicals.
Funny how halfway around the world the Italians have a similar dish called "spaghetti a aiolio". Main difference is they don't fry the garlic until it's crispy (usually)
Love cooking with Epic pasture raised lard. They had it on sale at a local store for 1.99 per 16oz jar. I bought a case. Wish I'd bought 2. How long will the fried garlic last?
That is some funky looking spinach. Looks almost like chinese celary, but with more leaf.
How long I can store the garlic and the garlic oil in the fridge ?
Have you heard of agli e olio? ❤
I wonder if Hakka cuisine made it to Italy since there's a "Aglio e Olio" dish that is very similar to these noodles.
Cheers.
Sounds like a Chinese cultural analogue of the real pasta alfredo!
Butter - Lard/Fish Sauce
Parmigiano - Garlic
Spaghetti - Noodles
Easy and quick comfort food!
Actually, more like pasta con colatura di alici (anchovy sauce) from Southern Italy.
SeriousEats has a good recipe for making fried garlic using the microwave. It's less likely to burn and more energy efficient than gas stove.
Thank you ♥️
When did you move to Bangkok?
The Hakka people introduced a localised version of their cuisine to Calcutta, India. Today Indo-Chinese is by far the most popular "foreign" cuisine in the country.
There's a restaurant in my city that does their fried rice in lard and it is so good. 😭
What's the best plant-based option instead of lard? I know it wont be the same but can't do the animal products.
use that garlic oil. or just peanut oil
Any neutral oil would do for making the fried garlic actually, that's what most commercial ones do in my part of the world (prob the seasoned fish sauce part too, if you swap it for soy). You can also probably play around with drizzling some seed/nut oils as a finisher, sesame oil is a staple in many styles of Chinese cooking.
fried garlic with pork fat is a great combination
man this food looks so good... i almost wish i didnt keep kosher so i can try!
Could you deep fry the garlic in lard and use the lard for this?
Damn, you got me craving for bakmi bangka in the midnight now 🤤
Should be able to find lard in the latin/hispanic (sometimes just called the "Goya" section) food section in the US.
What are good non pork substitutes for lard?
YOU CAN EAT GOJI LEAVES??? omg my house has a goji bush, I'll definitely have to try that once they grow in this year
what would you call the knife yall used to mince the garlic??
It may have a different name elsewhere, but I've seen them called vegetable cleavers.
It's typically called a Chinese cleaver and it's the standard Chinese kitchen knife, this is just a particularly pretty version
where can I get one of those giant woks?
You guys just opened up new possibilities by informing us there exists store bought fried garlic.
I'd love to travel through China
you had me at '5 hours later' i want to eat now!