History

Soupless dan dan noodles arrived in Hiroshima in the 2000s as a local reworking of the Sichuan dish, and the city now treats the broth-free version as its own. Shops grade both the chilli heat and the numbing Sichuan pepper separately, usually at no extra cost, and most add cumin and cinnamon to the spice blend. The convention is to stir the bowl thirty times before eating so the chilli oil coats every strand, then to order a small portion of rice at the end to finish what is left in the bowl.

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Common allergens: Gluten, Soy, Sesame

Make it at home

Yield Serves 2Hands-on 20 minTotal 25 minDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 2 portions flat wheat noodles
  • 150g minced pork
  • 2 tbsp chilli oil with sediment
  • 1 tbsp Chinese sesame paste
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp ground Sichuan pepper
  • 1/4 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 pinch ground cinnamon
  • 4 spring onions, finely sliced
  • 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
  • Steamed rice, to finish

Method

  1. Fry the minced pork in a dry pan over high heat until browned and slightly crisp, then set aside.
  2. In each serving bowl combine 1 tbsp chilli oil, half the sesame paste, soy sauce, sugar, Sichuan pepper, cumin and cinnamon.
  3. Cook the noodles to the packet time, drain well and shake off every drop of water.
  4. Put the hot noodles straight into the bowls on top of the sauce.
  5. Top with the pork, spring onions and sesame seeds.
  6. Stir hard for about thirty turns before eating, and drop a spoon of rice into the bowl at the end.

Tip from the editors. Use the sediment at the bottom of the chilli oil jar, not the clear oil on top. That sediment carries the flavour.

Where to eat shirunashi tantanmen

Shirunashi tantanmen in Hiroshima

Musashibo ★ 4.4

¥ RamenOtemachi

Musashibo sells Hiroshima's broth-free tantanmen from a ticket machine in Fujimi-cho, with every heat level priced exactly the same as the rest.

TryShirunashi tantanmen

TipBuy the ticket before you sit down, and stir the bowl hard before the first mouthful or the chilli oil stays at the bottom.

Directions

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