= NOODLE =
1. Cook in boiling water (4min)
2. Transfer to iced water immediately

= SAUCE =
1. Mash the black beans with 1 tablespoon of the Shaoxing wine in a food processor until you have a smooth paste. Wash the ginger and cut it into slices about the thickness of a coin

2. Snip the chilies into one-inch segments and try to remove as many seeds as possible.

3. Heat 3 T of vegetable oil over medium heat until hot (but not smoking). [Make sure the fan is on and the windows are open!] Cook the chilies in the hot oil until crisp and fragrant, taking care not to burn them (the oil should sizzle around the chilies).  Make sure they don't start turning black!

4. Once crispy and fragrant, remove the chilies with a wooden spoon.  At this point, the recipe says to add the 2/3 cup beef drippings/lard to the oil until melted.  In an effort to make this more healthy, I omitted this step and just used vegetable oil.

Once everything is melted, add the hot chili bean paste (la doban jiang) and stir-fry for a minute or so until the oil is richly red and fragrant. This should sizzle gently - take care not to burn it.  You can turn down the heat periodically if you think you are in danger of burning it. 

5. When the oil has reddened, add the mashed black beans and the ginger and continue to stir-fry until they are fragrant.

6. Pour in about 1 1/2 quarts of the stock and bring it to a boil.

7. When the liquid has come to a boil, add the rock sugar (or granulated sugar if you don't have rock sugar) and the rest of the Shaoxing rice wine, with the fermented rice wine if you have it, and salt to taste. (Note, I did not have fermented rice wine, so I did not add any of this).

8. Finally, add the prepared chilies (the ones you had fried up earlier) and Sichuan peppercorns according to taste and leave the broth to simmer 15-20 minutes, until it is wonderfully spicy