Breakfast Split Pea Soup from Yunnan (稀豆粉)

Xidoufen, a split pea breakfast porridge from Yunnan! There's a million variants to this dish, and today we wanted to teach you how to whip this up in a Kunming style.

0:00 - Southwest China's Split Pea culture
1:09 - Three Ways of Making Xidoufen
2:12 - How to Make Xidoufen
4:44 - How to Top a Xidoufen
7:15 - Importance of the Traditional Method?

SOURCING

I believe dried split peas should be western supermarket available? We're using something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Goya-Foods-Yel...

For the flour one, we tested with this Myanmar sort and it worked great - this package might actually be gram flour, but we don't know any Burmese:
https://bit.ly/3dKMbFz

Everything else should be western supermarket available except the Lao Gan Ma (available enough online - would recommend using "Chili Crisp" - 香辣脆油辣子 - as a base for this, though in the video we used “Fried Chili in Oil" 油辣子.

DRIED SPLIT PEA VERSION
(what we did in the video)

Split peas (去皮豌豆), 100g
Water: after soaking, weigh your strained peas (should swelled to something like ~200g), and add enough water to reach 400g total peas+water. Besides this, an additional 400g will be used during washing

Thoroughly wash your split peas until the water runs clear. Fill up with water to cover an inch over the peas, then soak overnight (or at least 8 hours) in the fridge.

Strain the peas. Weigh your strained peas to see how much water they've taken on (your 100g peas should've swelled to ~200g). Pour enough water in with your split peas to get to 400g total of peas+water. Blend this mixture together for ~4 minutes until smooth.

Pass the blended mixture through a cheesecloth to strain. Set the milky strained liquid aside.

Tie up the cheesecloth with the solids into a 'ball'. In a separate bowl, 'wash' the 'ball' with 200g of water as if you were washing clothes. After a couple minutes, the water should be milky, so set it aside. Repeat with the final 200g of water - combining the two 'washed' liquids. These thinner liquids will be what we begin the cooking process with.

Over a medium high flame, add the thinner liquids and cook, stirring constantly. Once they begin to look a bit opaque, ~5 minutes, begin to add in the thicker liquid from the initial pre-wash straining. Stir well before adding in, as it will have likely settled. Drizzle in bit by bit, stirring constantly - being sure to reach the bottom with your stirring motion. Once it's in, continue to cook over a medium flame for ~10 minutes, or until the xidoufen can 'lay on top of itself' as you drizzle it in.

FLOUR VERSION

So what you do is measure out your flour - e.g. 100g - and add in 300g water, give it a mix till there’s no dry flour flying around. At this point you’ll see many small clumps floating around, don’t worry. Just let it sit there for half an hour and let the flour absorb the liquid. Half an hour later, you’ll see most of the clumps are gone, now you can give it a nice stir to make sure nothing’s clumping.

To cook, bring 400g water to a boil, turn the heat to medium, keep stirring the water as you’re adding the pea flour mixture in (remember to stir the flour mixture right before adding in so that nothing’s settled at the bottom).

Keep stirring after all the flour mixture’s in, wait till it turns to the consistency we showed in the video. Then it’s ready to serve.

WHOLE PEA VERSION

For the whole pea version, refer to the always excellent Dianxi Xiaoge's video:
   • 一颗小豌豆的百变吃法：油炸干栏片、稀豆粉米线、豆粉浆，都是美味！【滇西小哥】  

TOPPINGS

For the chili oil, simply mix 2 tbsp Lao Gan Ma with 2 tbsp of oil and fry over a medium flame until red and fragrant, ~2 minutes.

For the ginger water, pound 1 inch of ginger together with 1/8 tsp of salt. Add in ~2 tbsp hot, boiled water and mix.

For the garlic oil, fry ~3 large cloves of minced garlic in with ~1/4 cup of peanut oil over a medium low flame. After about 5 minutes or so, the garlic should be lightly golden brown. Remove the garlic and the oil.

For each serving:

Salt, 1/8 tsp
MSG (味精), 1/8 tsp
Chili oil from above, 1 tbsp
Soy sauce (生抽), 1/2 tsp
Toasted sesame oil (麻油), 1/2 tsp
Garlic oil from above, 1/2 tbsp
Ginger water from above, 1/2 tbsp
Crushed toasted/roasted peanuts, ~1/2 tsp
Toasted sesame seeds (熟芝麻), ~1/2 tsp
Scallion and cilantro, a sprinkle of each

______
And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!
  / chinesecookingdemystified  

Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
Found via My Analog Journal (great channel):    • Live Stream: Favourite B-Side Tracks