Ants Climbing a Tree (ma yi shang shu – 蚂蚁上树) is a classic Sichuan dish consisting of glass noodles in a delicious sauce with ground pork. It has a weird and not-all-that-appetizing name, and the person who gave the dish that name was definitely an impressionist with a sense of humor.
They saw the glass noodles as tree branches, the chopped scallion as tree leaves, and the little bits of ground meat as the ants. I’m not sure I see the same image, but I’m grateful for this dish. It’s so easy to make, and it tastes absolutely fantastic.
One thing to remember when cooking Ants Climbing a Tree is that the glass noodles will soak up the sauce very quickly. If you like having more sauce, you can increase the amount of chicken stock by up to 1 cup. The dish is usually pretty saucy at restaurants, but I personally like it a little bit “dry,” wherein the noodles have soaked up most of the sauce, and they maintain a slightly chewy texture. Feel free to increase the amount of stock according to your own preferences!
Oh, and one last point in case you are new to our site and weren’t aware, Sichuan cuisine (also spelled as Szechuan cuisine) is spicy hot!
Ants Climbing a Tree: Recipe Instructions
Soak the dry vermicelli/glass noodles in cold water for 10 minutes. Rinse, drain and set aside. In a wok over medium heat, add the oil and minced ginger. Cook the ginger for about a minute, and add the spicy fermented bean sauce/paste.
Let that cook for another minute, and then add the ground pork (or chicken). Stir-fry until the meat is cooked through.
Add the chicken stock, sugar, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce.
Bring everything to boil. Once boiling, add the glass noodles and scallions.
Quickly stir everything together for 1-2 minutes. Serve alone, or with steamed rice!
Seriously. How easy was that?
Other spicy recipes from the Sichuan region include Chongqing Chicken, Sichuan Three Pepper Chicken, and Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans.
Ants Climbing A Tree (Ma Yi Shang Shu)
Ingredients
- 4 oz. dry vermicelli/glass noodles (110g)
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 tablespoon ginger (finely minced)
- 1 tablespoon spicy fermented bean sauce/paste
- 4 oz. ground pork (110g; can substitute ground chicken)
- 2 cups chicken stock (475 ml)
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons light soy sauce
- ¼ cup scallion (chopped)
Instructions
- Soak the dry noodles in cold water for 10 minutes. Rinse, drain and set aside. In a wok over medium heat, add the oil and minced ginger. Cook the ginger for about a minute, and add the spicy bean sauce. Let that cook for another minute, and then add the ground pork (or chicken). Stir-fry until the meat is cooked through.
- Add the chicken stock, sugar, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce. Bring everything to boil. Once boiling, add the glass noodles and scallions. Quickly stir everything together for 1-2 minutes. Serve alone, or with steamed rice!
- Seriously. How easy was that?
Enjoyed this! Used half the chicken stock – didn’t need a full 4 cups but otherwise perfect!
Thank you, Lizzy.
Can I add veggies or tofu instead of ground meat?
Yes, you can add veggies like minced mushroom.
Oh my! I’ve made that Ants Climbing a Tree a zillion times! My fave ever!!! Been making it once or twice a month!!!
Love it, Ely.
Addictive.
Just an FYI for the “soupy” comments.I usually follow a different recipe and wanted to try Judy’s. I wasn’t paying attention to the cold soak and boil soaked my noodles, which would only require half cup of chix stock. So, we had soup.
Did the noodles soak up all the soup while you were eating?
unfortunately, no. I think it’s because I didnt follow your direction on cold soak. The hot water must have saturating the noodles before I added them to pan.
Your recipe was delicious , regardless.
I am glad you found the missing part, Ev. Thank you for commenting back.
Tasted delicious, however, I feel that there is far too much chicken broth in this recipe. I was under the impression that this was supposed to be more of a dry noodle rather than a soupy one? Even the pictures posted appears as if you are using less than two cups.
Hi Ashley, glass noodles soak up a lot of liquid at a fast pace. It might look like a lot of liquid when you dish it out, but the liquid quickly disappears when you sit down to eat.
I see, in that case, perhaps I used too little of the glass noodles. I’ll try the recipe again with more noodles and post the results. :)
Great recipe. 2 questions: are glass noodles supposed to have a ‘soft’ texture like spaghetti or lo mein, or more ‘chewy’ kind of like a flavorless gummy bear? Mine cane out ‘chewy’. Second question: I bought the Chengdu Jiuanfei Pixian Broad Bean Paste. It has (up to) 1/2 inch pieces of pepper-skin in it that are though to chew and get stuck in the back of your throat. Is this normal?
Hi Don, the texture of the glass noodles are chewy; Your description of the broad bean paste is normal–just know that you can take the broad bean paste onto your cutting board to mince it finer like you’d do with garlic.
I love this recipe! So simple and quick but so delicious with a great balance of flavors. Definitely helps to use some good Sichuan doubanjiang.
Oh I also really like adding rehydrated shiitake to this.
That’s so great, Mark.
Oh my goodness, I am so excited to make this! I had it a number of years ago from the Chinese menu at a local northern Chinese restaurant, but I never could figure out the name of the dish, and when I went back to try to have it again, we couldn’t communicate well enough to figure out what I was asking for. What a wonderful name, too!
Ya…someone was very creative :-)
I’ve made this twice in the past week- it’s so easy, and so, so tasty. thank you for this :)
Hehehe…you are so welcome, Dan.
I’ve been cooking Chinese, Korean and Japanese dishes for decades now and this is always a favourite in our house. It’s very close to Forence Lin’s recipe in her book Chinese Regional Cooking albeit a bit easier to prepare.
Thank you, Paul, for your high praise :-)