The Shanghainese dish called cong you ban mian combines wheat noodles with fried scallions, the flavorful oil they fry in and salty-savory soy sauce. A lot of deep, bold flavor is wrested from a handful of ingredients for a filling and satisfying weeknight-friendly meal.
In this recipe from our cookbook “Milk Street 365: The All-Purpose Cookbook for Every Day of the Year,” we cut the scallions into thin strips before cooking, allowing them to crisp evenly and quickly while flavoring the cooking oil. Once fried, they integrate nicely with the noodles rather than fall to the bottom of the bowl.
Ground pork is cooked in the scallion-infused oil until browned, then simmered with soy sauce and sugar to create a savory-sweet sauce. Be sure to scrape up any browned bits stuck to the pan so no flavor is left behind. Don’t stir the scallions or pork too frequently; this slows down the browning and crisping process.
Dried Asian wheat noodles about the size of thin spaghetti work well in this recipe; non-instant dried ramen is a good choice, as are thin lo mein noodles (don’t use wide, flat lo mein).