Flick through any food magazine right now, and 99% of recipes will be Christmas adjacent – puds, spuds, legs of meat and bacon-wrapped paraphernalia. I find it bizarre because it suggests that during the festive period, all we want to do is eat festive food. We can all agree there are only so many Yorkshire puddings, parched turkey breasts and stuffing balls you can swallow before you must come up for air (and start a lengthy course of Dulcolax).
Unless you’re counting cheese-covered cauliflower, a dozen sultanas in a Christmas pud and the grapes in your port as a fibre fix, Christmas can feel like a vitamin-C tundra. While it’s nice to lean into the Henry VIII gout-ridden lifestyle for a few days, there comes a time during the festive season when your digestive tract yearns for a big bowl of veg potent with sharpness and heat. These noodles fit the brief.
This Sichuanese style of cooking aubergines is known as fish-fragrant – not because it contains any, but because the dish’s flavours draw on the seasoning used in Sichuanese fish cookery. It’s a robust winter staple – packed with spiced warmth, lustre and fragrance thanks to the aromatics, fermented chilli paste and cumin that melds with the silken aubergine flesh. Make a bulk batch of these aubergines and squirrel them in your freezer to slurp on when SAD season kicks in. You’ll thank me later.
You can make your own biang biang noodles, but chances are, cooking from scratch around Christmas time is about as appealing as sitting on Santa’s knee. Asian supermarkets and big Sainsbury’s sell them dried, ready to boil. Use udon, or knife-cut noodles if you can’t find them.
