Shredded Carrot
胡萝卜丝
English: Shredded Carrot
Chinese: 胡萝卜丝
Pinyin: hu luo bo si
Literal: Shredded Carrot
Xi’an, the noodle capital of the world, attracts epicureans from every province hankering to try biang biang mian, liang pi (cold noodles), yangling noodles or countless others wheaty treats, but it was the shredded carrot dish that stayed with me after my last trip a few months ago. After three days of eating fantastic food across the city, I discovered this dish at an airport restaurant on the way back to Beijing. I loved the simplicity of it - just a few regular Chinese ingredients that every kitchen would have but the result is a great liang cai (cold dish) from a root vegetable that doesn’t get used too often in China.
The carrot is known as 胡萝卜 (hu luo bo) in Chinese, which translates to ‘barbarian radish’. The hu was originally used to mean ‘foreign’, in other words, not-native. Carrots likely came in via the Silk Road from Persia, ending up in Chang’an (modern day Xi’an). This would have been long purple roots and fat yellow sticks, both which are still found in China today, although the Dutch-cultivated orange carrot is more common, as it is around the world.
Carrots found a good home in North China. They were a hardy crop that could be added to the small list of vegetables that thrived in the cold climate and could store well right through the winter. They were a popular choice for pickling alongside white radishes, but also sat nicely in a soup or stew, and paired well with fatty meats too. But here the vegetables works alone: the sweetness of the carrot standing bolding next to big Chinese spices.
This is not a crunchy refreshing summer salad. We want to cook the carrot until the water steams out and the rawness has faded. Once soft, the carrot is transformed; the flavours absorb to create a little taste of Xi’an in your own kitchen.
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
3 carrots (600-700g)
3 spring onions
2 slices of ginger
3 garlic cloves
1 star anise
1 tablespoon whole Sichuan peppercorns
1 ½ tablespoons light soy sauce
Salt - to taste
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
1 heaped tablespoon sesame seeds
Method
Wash and peel the carrots, and then shred the carrots using a mandolin or the julienne side of your veg peeler. You want long, noodle-like strands of carrot. Set aside.
Prepare the other ingredients: separate the white and green part of the spring onion and then finely slice the white part and chop the green part into 1-inch pieces. Slice the ginger with the skin on, and finely chop the garlic.
Heat a wok over a low heat without oil and add the sesame seeds. Dry-fry for 2 minutes or until fragrant. Remove the sesame seeds from the pan and set aside for later.
Heat the same wok over a low heat with 1.5 tablespoons of oil. When hot, add the Sichuan peppercorns and fry for about 30 seconds, or until fragrant.
Add the spring onion (white and green), ginger, garlic and star anise and fry for another minute, being careful not to colour the garlic.
Turn up the heat to high, add the carrot and stir. Cover the wok with a lid, turn the heat down a bit and leave for about 2 minutes or until the carrot has lost it’s rawness.
Remove the lid, then add the soy sauce and stir to coat all the carrot. Cook for another minute and then take off the heat. Find the ginger and star anise and discard if you want.
Stir in the sesame oil and most of the seeds, stir, plate, and then sprinkle the remaining seeds over the top.
