Northern Shaanxi Fried Flour Noodles

Northern Shaanxi Fried Flour Noodles

　　The fried flour noodles eaten in the daily life of people in Northern Shaanxi are not the same as those sold in street restaurants—this kind of fried noodles is not that kind of fried noodles.

　　There are many varieties of millet and grain in Northern Shaanxi. Among the numerous types, there is one particularly special type of millet called “broom millet”—the stalks of this millet can be used to make brooms, and the fried flour made from this millet is the most delicious.

　　After drying and winnowing the broom millet, it is stir-fried thoroughly in a large iron pot until all the grains are evenly roasted and golden. Then it is ground finely using a quick mill, and the resulting flour is naturally the fried flour noodles—this kind of fried flour is called yellow fried noodles.

　　Yellow fried noodles are a delicious food. Scoop some of the fried flour into a bowl, pour in some boiling water, and slowly stir it with chopsticks until it forms a dough-like consistency that is neither too soft nor too hard—and you’re ready to eat the fried noodles. Take a bite of the yellow fried noodles, and they are fragrant, salty, and chewy—truly like enjoying a delicacy.

　　Do you think these fried noodles are simply delicious? It turns out that on the Loess Plateau of Northern Shaanxi, there is a special wild herb called “fried noodles flower.” This fried noodles flower is a small wild herb with an intense fragrance, usually blooming on hillsides, and its fresh aroma can be smelled from far away. This fried noodles flower is a unique gift bestowed by nature upon Northern Shaanxi. When making fried noodles, locals always mix in some fried noodles flowers, and so the noodles become as fragrant as if blessed by the gods themselves.

　　The fried noodles in Northern Shaanxi are also slightly salty, which is naturally because a bit of salt was mixed in when blending the flour. In fact, whether or not to add salt is entirely up to personal taste.

　　Eating fried noodles is just that simple and convenient.

　　In fact, eating fried noodles can be even more convenient. Just scoop out some fried noodles and pop them directly into your mouth without mixing them with water—this is called dry fried noodles, or what locals in Northern Shaanxi call “0 fried noodles.”

　　Besides the yellow fried noodles made from millet, there is also a type of fried noodles made from bran, called bran fried noodles. Bran fried noodles are made by roasting bran, mixing it with some date paste, then drying and grinding it. It is a very hard-to-swallow famine food eaten by people in Northern Shaanxi during tough times. In normal years, no one eats this kind of fried noodles. Therefore, when people generally talk about eating fried noodles, they are of course referring to yellow fried noodles. Yellow fried noodles are the truly authoritative and representative good fried noodles of Northern Shaanxi. Under normal circumstances, after a long day of hard work in the fields, when a farmer returns home in the evening and his wife serves him a bowl of yellow fried noodles, followed by two bowls of millet porridge, he will surely dream of becoming a god even halfway through the night.