Hakka Flat Noodles

Hakka flat noodles, ban tiao, are the noodle form of the Hakka rice cookery of the Hsinchu and Miaoli hill country, where the Hakka settled and where rice, not wheat, was the staple grain. The ban tiao itself is a wide, flat, slightly chewy sheet noodle made by steaming a thin layer of rice-flour batter, then cutting it into broad ribbons, a technique related to Cantonese cheung fun but distinctively Hakka in its width and chew. The noodles are served two ways, dry-tossed in a sauce of soy, shallot oil, pork fat and fried shallots with sliced pork and bean sprouts, or stir-fried in a smoking wok with the same flavourings, the second being the more famous. The shallot oil, slow-rendered from shallots in pork fat, is the soul of the dish, its deep savoury aroma defining Hakka cooking, and the chewy bite of the ban tiao against the oily shallot sauce is the pleasure. Meinong in Kaohsiung, a southern Hakka enclave, also has its own ban tiao tradition. The dish is a fixture of every Hakka town's old street and night market.

Broad, flat, chewy rice noodles glistening with shallot oil and soy, tossed with tender pork, crisp bean sprouts and the deep savoury crunch of fried shallots. The shallot oil's aroma leads, the chewy bite of the noodle follows; deeply savoury, oily in a good way.

The ban tiao's character is the noodle and the shallot oil. The noodle is made by spreading a thin layer of rice-flour batter, of inelastic rice flour, a little tapioca for chew, water and salt, onto a flat tray, steaming it into a set sheet, then cutting it into broad flat ribbons, the sheet's slight thickness giving the characteristic chewy, bouncy bite that wheat noodles lack. For the dry-tossed version, the noodles are blanched, drained, and tossed with a sauce of soy, shallot oil, a little sugar and pork fat, topped with sliced lean pork stir-fried separately, bean sprouts and a generous scatter of fried shallots. The shallot oil is the soul, made by slowly frying sliced shallots in pork lard until deep golden and crisp, the oil itself steeped through with shallot aroma, and both oil and crisp shallots go into the dish. For the stir-fried version, the noodles are wok-fried with the shallot oil, pork, soy and bean sprouts over very high heat, the wok hei essential. The shallot oil and the chewy rice noodle are the Hakka signatures.