Name: Daoxiaomian (Knife-Shaved Noodles)
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 1 h 50 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour; 215 ml water; 5 g salt; 400 g stewing beef; 2 tbsp vegetable oil; 1 stalk spring onion; 20 g ginger; 1.5 tbsp doubanjiang; 3 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tsp dark soy sauce; 2 star anise; 1 piece cassia bark; 1.5 L water; 1 tsp sugar; 4 heads pak choi; 3 spring onions; 2 tbsp coriander; 1 tbsp Shanxi vinegar; 1 tbsp chilli oil

Ingredients

4servings

The dough (serves 4)
plain flour · half strong white makes it chewier500 g
water · 43% hydration; do not go higher215 ml
salt5 g
The broth
stewing beef · shin or brisket, in 3cm cubes400 g
vegetable oil2 tbsp
spring onion1 stalk
ginger · sliced20 g
doubanjiang1.5 tbsp
soy sauce3 tbsp
dark soy sauce · for colour; optional1 tsp
star anise2
cassia bark1 piece
water1.5 L
sugar1 tsp
To finish
pak choi4 heads
spring onions · finely sliced3
coriander · optional2 tbsp
Shanxi vinegar · poured over at the end1 tbsp
chilli oil · optional1 tbsp

Steps

Mix the flour and salt with the water a little at a time. 43% hydration is very low — it should just clump without sticking to your hands. Adding more water because it looks too dry is what stops this dish from working.
⏲ 10 min
Knead hard for 10 minutes. With this little water it will not even come together at first. Press with the heel of your hand, fold, press again, and it gradually becomes one mass.
⏲ 10 min
Cover with a damp cloth and rest at room temperature at least 1 hour, and 2 is better. Dough and gluten says that dough fighting you as you roll is a time problem, not a strength problem — but here the rest is not so it will roll thin. It is so the lump holds its shape against a blade instead of collapsing.
⏲ 120 min
Meanwhile, the broth. Brown the beef in the oil, add the spring onion, ginger and doubanjiang until fragrant, then the soy sauce, water, star anise, cassia and sugar.
⏲ 15 min
Covered, 1 hour 30 minutes at a low simmer, until the beef parts with chopsticks. If the broth tastes salty, do not add water — loosen it with a little of the noodle water in the last step.
⏲ 90 min
Shape the dough into a rugby-ball lump and rest it on one palm or your forearm. With a big pan of hard-boiling water directly in front of you, lay the blade almost flat against the surface of the dough and push it away from you to shave. Each piece flies straight into the pan.
⏲ 10 min
Shallow and fast, one stroke each. Dig in and you get a thick lump; hold the blade upright and you only scuff the surface. Two or three out of ten coming off properly is normal at first — boil the ugly ones anyway.
⏲ 5 min
Once they are all in, boil 3–4 minutes. They float, and the mark of this noodle is the middle still faintly opaque while both edges are fully cooked. Lift them out; do not rinse them.
⏲ 4 min
Blanch the pak choi in the same water for 30 seconds and lift out.
⏲ 30 sec
Noodles into bowls, hot broth and beef over. Top with the pak choi, spring onion and coriander and a good circle of Shanxi vinegar. In Shanxi the vinegar is not optional.
⏲ 3 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Vegetarian: topped with stir-fried tomato and egg — xihongshi jidan, the commonest version in Shanxi homes. Tomato and egg stir-fry spooned straight over the noodles.
Dry-tossed: no broth, just chilli oil, vinegar, garlic and soy. The rough shaved surface holds the dressing, and the noodle itself comes forward.
With lamb: northern Shanxi uses mutton in place of beef.
The knife: Shanxi uses a dedicated curved blade. Without one, a vegetable peeler or a long thin paring knife works — and for a beginner the peeler is easier.
One of China's five great noodles: ko.wikipedia lists it alongside Yanji cold noodles, Beijing zhajiangmian, Sichuan dandanmian and Wuhan reganmian. Of those five, naengmyeon, jjajangmyeon, dandan noodles and reganmian are already here.

Tips

It is the sixth way to make a noodle here. Orecchiette sets out the five: kalguksu rolls and cuts, Lanzhou lamian folds and pulls, spätzle scrapes through holes, khanom chin extrudes, and orecchiette are turned one at a time over a thumb. Daoxiaomian is shaved directly off the lump. In all five the dough is made thin first and shaped afterwards; here thickness, width and length are all decided in the instant the blade passes.
Which is why each strand is a wedge. A shallow stroke leaves the middle thick and both edges thin. Boiled, the thin edges go soft while the thick centre keeps a bite, so one mouthful carries two textures. No machine-extruded noodle of uniform section can do that, and it is the reason to eat this one.
It sits at the opposite end of the axis Lanzhou lamian names. That page says what separates a pulled noodle from a cut one "is not the absence of a knife but that the dough has to be taken in the direction of stretch rather than spring." A daoxiaomian dough must do neither: it has to be a firm mass that holds its shape under a blade. Hence 43% water.
Adding water does not spoil the dough, it spoils the dish. Dough and gluten files anything under 50% as "firm dough that rolls thin." Here the low hydration is not for rolling, it is for resisting. A 60% dough sags on the forearm and the blade scuffs it instead of shaving it.
Put the boiling water directly in front of you. A shaved piece dries on its surface within seconds in the air, and dry pieces stick to each other. Collecting them on a board and carrying them over does not work with this noodle.
Do not rinse them. Cooking noodles says to rinse when the broth must stay clear; this broth is a dark braise, and the surface starch is what gives it body.
The vinegar goes on at the end. Shanxi is vinegar country, and its job is to cut the fat of a heavy soy braise (balancing flavour).

The basics behind this dish

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