Soy Sauce Noodles and The Best Black Vinegar

Black vinegar is a staple ingredient in the Chinese pantry, but it's one lots of people aren't familiar with. It's made from fermented black glutinous rice, which is what gives the vinegar its colour, its faint sweetness, and an acidity that's rounded instead of sharp. Think less "puckery vinegar," more "savoury with tang." The flavour is along the lines of a good balsamic, though also quite different.

Cheap bottles skip most of that fermentation and taste flat and one-note. That's most of what's on grocery store shelves, and it's why I wrote the whole ingredient off for years.

Gold Plum is the benchmark brand, the name people look for when they want the real thing. Smooth, earthy, with a faintly smoky depth under the sweetness. And once you're familiar with its flavour, you'll find plenty of uses for it: finishing a stir-fry, whisked into dumpling sauce, or, in summer, as the whole backbone of a cold noodle dressing.

Two other great ingredients are essential to the dressing on our noodles. Yamasa has been brewing soy sauce in Japan for over three centuries using traditional slow fermentation. That patience shows up as flavour: rounder and less salty than a mass-market soy sauce, so it seasons without flattening everything else. Holy Duck Chili Oil is built on rendered Canadian duck fat instead of the usual vegetable oil (it's surprising how much of a difference this makes), layered with fried garlic, fermented black beans, Sichuan peppercorn, and kombu. It's not a particularly spicy chili oil. What it brings is savoury weight, and that's what rounds out this dressing rather than just adding heat to it. Get these three ingredients in the house and you'll understand why I make this on repeat.

Soy Sauce Noodles

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Gold Plum Chinkiang Black Vinegar
1/3 cup Yamasa Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Holy Duck Chili Oil, well stirred
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 small garlic clove, grated
3 scallions, greens and whites divided
3 carrots, peeled and julienned
400g fresh Asian wheat noodles
1/2 cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
Cooked shrimp, tofu, or shredded chicken (optional)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, combine the black vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil, sesame oil, sugar, and garlic. Finely chop the scallion whites and add to the dressing. Cut the scallion greens on the bias and set aside. Prep the carrots and protein, if using.
   
2. Cook the noodles according to package directions until al dente. Drain, reserving about 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking water. Add the noodles to the dressing and toss to coat. Add the carrots, cilantro, scallion greens, and sesame seeds (and protein, if using), and toss to combine, loosening with a little of the reserved noodle water as needed.

Makes 4 servings