Hot and sour noodles

It's unclear when and who invented the "Hot and Sour Noodles". It had been very popular in at least the Qin Dynasty, and was initially mostly served as street food in Sichuan. But as time went by, it gradually conquered the taste buds of more and more people. Nowadays, you can even find it in some high-level restaurants in China.

After the instant noodles were invented in Japan, the same method was introduced for hot and sour noodles in Sichuan. One example is Baijia Instant Noodles.

Its unique flavor combines the sourness from Chinese rice vinegar with the spiciness from chili pepper oil. The grounded toasted peanuts and soybeans on top of noodles gave the special texture of crispness. Besides rice vinegar, chili oil and peanuts/soybeans, other ingredients include sugar, salt, soy sauce, scallion pieces, and smashed garlic.

The preparation for hot and sour noodles is relatively easy and quick if you have all the right ingredients handy. For these street vendors in Sichuan, it only takes 2–3 minutes to serve the noodle after taking customers orders. Basically it involves 2 steps： 1. Simmer the noodles in the boiling water. For sweet potato starch noodles, it only requires 1–2 minutes; 2. Mix the noodles with the ingredients in the correct sequence - Get the noodle soup in the bowl (the soup could be chicken broth or other soup), add rice vinegar, soy sauce, salt, sugar and chili oil in the bowl, then put the noodles in the bowl, the last step is to put peanuts/soybean and scallion pieces on top of the noodle.

With recent development in cooking technique, hot and sour sauce for noodles is invented and manufactured in factories. It's easy to use and further reduce the hassle to get the amount right for each ingredients. Below is the cook instruction for hot and sour noodles by using the sauce.[1]

• Fuchsia Dunlop. Land of Plenty : A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. ISBN 0393051773.
• Fuchsia Dunlop. Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China. (New York: Norton, 2008). ISBN 9780393066579. The author's experience and observations, especially in Sichuan.