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Traditionally, this Chinese dish was carried by street food hawkers in 2 baskets suspended on a bamboo pole (called a dan), which is where the dish gets its name. The key flavour is Sichuan pepper which is popular for its fabulous citrus flavour and tingling effect on the tongue which becomes surprisingly addictive the more you eat!
Book: How to Be a Noodle Legend
Prep: 15 mins
Cook: 30 mins
Noodle Legend Dan Dan Noodles
Downloadable Recipe
These delicious ribs, coated in a rich tangy sauce flavoured with lots of soy and star anise from our BADIAN BLEND, are a real favourite at Spicery HQ and make a deliciously indulgent main course. In the summer you can cook them on a cool part of the barbeque in a foil parcel, then unwrap and brush with the sauce to serve.
Cook: 2 hours
Chinese BBQ Ribs
Satay isn't a traditional Chinese dish (it originated in Indonesia and may have been introduced there by Arab traders), but has become an extremely popular option in Chinese takeaways in the UK. The rich, sweet peanut-based sauce is really indulgent and a great option for those who might prefer a milder flavour.
Prep: 5 mins
Chicken in Satay Sauce
Chicken balls are a creation of British-Chinese takeaways where the owners (who often originally arrived from Hong Kong in the 1970s) took over chip shops in provincial British towns and started to offer a hybrid menu of Chinese and British dishes, which of course became enormously popular. These chicken balls are delicious with chips, and perfect to dip in a bowl of sweet and sour or curry sauce!
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Chicken Balls
This is a very quick Chinese-style cucumber salad, perfect for those occasions when you need a speedy side to cool down a fiery main course or noodle dish! 'Smashing' or 'smacking' the cucumber gives a really interesting texture to this delicious salad, which works brilliantly on the side of all sorts of different meals.
Prep: 0 mins
Cook: 5 mins
Simple Cucumber Salad
Barbequed skewers of chicken, diced lamb, various bits of offal or many other ingredients such as mushrooms and thinly sliced potato are very popular in Northern and Western China. This style of cooking (collectively known as 'shaokao'), together with the spicy seasonings sprinkled over to serve, are a legacy of the Mongolians who ruled huge parts of China for centuries, and whose cultural legacy still endures to this day.
Shaokao Chicken Skewers
Even the most committed tofu sceptic will be won over with this delicious dish of crispy tofu with lots of garlic and fragrant Sichuan pepper from our MA LA BLEND. Toasting the spices to make the seasoning mix gives a deeper, more rounded flavour (plus it smells amazing in your kitchen while you do it!).
Prep: 30 mins
Cook: 25 mins
Salt & Pepper Crispy Tofu
The combination of lemon and chicken is a fabulous one, but lemon chicken from a Chinese takeaway has become slightly notorious in recent years for its vivid yellow sweet sauce and potential calorific content! Made at home with fresh lemons it's a fantastic dish with a delicious tangy flavour, and will always get a lot of love from friends and family at your Noodle Legend feasts!
Prep: 25 mins
Cook: 40 mins
Lemon Chicken
'Szechuan' is often used as a catch-all term in British Chinese restaurants to indicate a bright red, slightly spicy sauce, and this recipe includes all those delicious sweet, sour and spicy flavours with an extra touch of fragrance from our MA LA BLEND! Here we're using king prawns (marinated with cornflour and baking soda for ultimate juiciness!) but you can substitute diced chicken or even firm tofu if you prefer.
Prep: 20 mins
King Prawns in Szechuan Sauce
This simple stir-fry is a good one to make with any older pieces of ginger you might have knocking around the fridge, as the stronger flavour and tougher texture of mature ginger is perfect to flavour this delicious sauce. Try to keep your ginger root in one piece after you crush it if at all possible as it makes it so much easier to fish out at the end and avoid any unexpected fiery mouthfuls!
Ginger Chicken
Egg fried rice is one of the most iconic dishes on the Chinese restaurant menu, and it cleverly uses something that would otherwise be a waste product (leftover rice), and turns it into something truly delicious. It's a tribute to Chinese cooks and their determination and skill to use every scrap of food available in the most effective way.
Cook: 10 mins
Egg Fried Rice
There's no need to grab a pack of instant noodles full of additives now you have the Noodle Legend spices - you can knock up this ultra-fast spicy noodle dish in less time than it takes to boil the kettle! Add toppings of your choice to customise this dish and make it more substantial; anything from shredded chicken, crushed peanuts, crispy shallots or even a fried egg will really enhance this easy and speedy meal!
Easy Spicy Noodles
The enormous city of Chongqing (once part of Sichuan but now a province in its own right) is renowned across China for having some of the most ferociously hot and spicy food in the whole country! This favourite local dish (known as xiao mian) is made with a rich and aromatic chilli oil flavoured with lots of fragrant Sichuan pepper and dried chillies. It's often served with cooked yellow peas on top - here, chickpeas are a very good substitute.
Cook: 50 mins
Spicy Chongqing Beef Noodles
This simple noodle dish has a rich, sweet flavour from the combination of nut butter, sesame oil, crushed peanuts and the sesame seeds in our ZHIMA BLEND. The mix of textures from all these components also helps to make this easy recipe feel much more sophisticated than the time taken to make it would suggest!
Easy Sesame & Peanut Noodles
It's so much nicer to enjoy some lovely fresh veg in a light and fragrant broth than a dried instant version, and with this super-easy and delicious recipe it's almost as quick to make at home! Add extra chilli oil for heat, or sprinkle over some crispy fried garlic or shallots to add more texture.
Easy 'One Pot' Noodles
A cold noodle salad is just the thing to cool down with on a hot day, and this simple salad is ideal for a picnic or at a barbeque. You can adjust the basic recipe in any way you prefer - add cooked prawns or shredded raw vegetables instead of chicken, or some chopped fresh chilli for extra heat!
Cold Sesame Noodles
This simple stir-fry is made with a rich, dark and fragrant sauce flavoured with lots of sweet-scented BADIAN BLEND. It's a really easy dish to make, and while it looks exotic with the whole cashew nuts and water chestnuts in the sauce, it tastes very familiar and should become a firm family favourite!
Chicken with Cashew Nuts
Prawn toast is an essential component of any Chinese mixed starter, and is really easy to make at home. This simple recipe works just as well with raw or cooked prawns, and the BADIAN BLEND adds a lovely sweet fragrance that really complements the moreish crunchy topping.
Prep: 5mins
Cook: 15 mins
Sesame Prawn Toast
Simply cooked leafy green vegetables are some of the most important but often overlooked dishes of Chinese cuisine (particularly in the Southern states), and this version with a rich, sweet and savoury sauce is a real favourite. Here we're flavouring the oyster sauce dressing with fresh garlic, ginger and our sweet-scented BADIAN BLEND for extra flavour and fragrance.
Greens with Oyster Sauce
This easy recipe uses a uniquely Chinese technique to flavour the dish, whereby boiling hot oil is poured over dry aromatics that then fry and 'sizzle' in the heat, and so impart their flavour and fragrance. It's a simple process but the colour and flavour generated by the sizzling oil is really spectacular and gives a wonderful flavour to this everyday noodle dish.
Easy Sizzling Chilli Oil Noodles
Making your own spring rolls is an extremely satisfying activity, and you can customise this simple recipe to include all kinds of different ingredients - thinly sliced mushrooms, leeks, cabbage, shredded duck or pork all work very well. These spring rolls are easy to fry in a pan, but you can also get very good results in the oven or air fryer (just turn regularly, brushing with oil each time).
Cook: 45 mins
Spring Rolls
This is a very flexible recipe that you can use for pretty much any mix of vegetables you have to hand. Having said that, if you happen to have any very hard vegetables like carrots or squash as well as some soft leafy vegetables like spinach, you may need to cut the pieces smaller or add them before the leafy vegetables so they're cooked through at the same time!
Stir-Fried Mixed Veg
This Sichuan dish is made from pork simmered in an aromatic broth, then thinly sliced and fried with peppers, spring onions and a rich spicy sauce. You can use miso paste to give the sauce a really deep, savoury flavour or try using Sichuan chilli-bean paste (doubanjiang) for a spicier and more authentic taste.
Cook: 1 hour 30 mins
Twice Cooked Pork
Crispy 'seaweed' is a clever invention of Chinese restaurateurs, who took tough and often unusable dark green cabbage and kale leaves, then shredded and fried them to make a snack so well-loved it's now a core part of any Chinese restaurant's mixed starter dish. The look, texture and flavour is indeed very similar to actual seaweed dishes found in East Asia, just more widely available in the UK (and much cheaper)!
Crispy Seaweed