Chinese Spaghetti Bolognese

My husband and I ate this dish from a very small noodle restaurant in Beijing close to Dongsi tube station on line 5. We both love it, my husband says it reminds him of Spaghetti Bolognese, but with a special Chinese flavour.

I tried many times to cook it after I moved to UK, however I found it is not easy to get all authentic ingredients sometimes. Then I decided I would try to find alternative ingredients from local supermarket. We think my version Chinese Spaghetti Bolognese is just as good as from the restaurant. Here’s how to cook it!

Ingredients

peanut oil

400g pork mince

3 rashers dry-cured smoked streaky bacon sliced thin

4 or 5 your favourite mushrooms sliced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced in half

3 spring onions trimmed and sliced

2 slices fresh ginger, peeled

2 star anise

1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper

1 tablespoon shaoxing rice wine

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

2 tablespoons chili bean sauce (see picture below I got it from Tesco)

Medium egg noodles (whole wheat if you like)

Method

Get a medium flat bottom sauté pan with a lid. You do not need a wok for this.

Heat the pan with 2 tablespoons peanut oil, add pork mince and break apart any lumps. Let it cook a couple of minutes until all water cooks away and going brown, drain and place onto a plate for later.

Add fresh oil to pan and cook bacon and mushrooms until soft and put with pork mince for later. Add 1 more tablespoon oil if needed then put 1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper into the pan and fry a little bit, when you smell the pepper release its flavour, pick them out from the oil before they go dark.

Then add spring onion, garlic, ginger, star anise, into the pepper flavoured oil, and stir-fry for 30 seconds, then put the pork mince and mushrooms back in, along with 1 tablespoon shaoxing rice wine, 2 tablespoons chili sauce, 2 tablespoons light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce. Stir well and mix all ingredients together.

Then add 150ml water into the pan, put the lid on when comes to boiling. Turn to low heat and simmer it for 10-15mins.  Check the mince, when you see the sauce almost reduced to gone, but not too dry, it is read to serve.

Place cooked noodles into a bowl and add Bolognese onto it, now you can enjoy this delicous dish!

It is nice to add some chopped raw celery on top when serving for freshness and crunch, or you can add parsley, coriander or cucumber if you want.