Decoding Everyone’s Favourite Asian Dessert, Here’s A Detailed Guide to Making Darsaan, the Delicious Chinese Honey Fried Noodles

Fried honey noodles or darsaan is a Chinese dessert that brings together fried noodles, flavoured with honey, and served alongside vanilla ice cream. It's an exciting marriage of flavours and textures in the mouth. The fried noodles are crispy, the honey coats the tongue, and the ice cream refreshes the mouth with each bite. It’s a multifaceted eating experience and one that you should definitely try making on your own. Once you get it right, you’ll want to keep coming back to this Asian Dessert.

Ingredients:

To make the Flat Noodles

• 1 tablespoon of oil
• All purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• Water, for the dough
• Oil, to deep fry

For the honey syrup

• 2 tablespoons of honey
• 2 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons of water
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

• The first thing you have to do is make the dough for the noodles. In a bowl, add the flour, baking powder, oil and a little water so that you can make a smooth dough. Knead thoroughly but don't apply too much pressure. Use water one spoon at a time, adding more if needed, but ensuring that it doesn't become too runny.
• Once the dough is ready, divide it into small, lemon sized balls. Dust each ball with flour and roll it out like a chapati using a rolling pin. Ensure you've dusted flour on both sides of the dough ball and around the rolling pin too.
• Once the dough balls are all flattened, use a knife to cut out strips of the dough. They should be about 1 cm each, and look like flat noodles.
• Now, heat a pan and add water. Let it simmer on medium heat. Add a spoon of oil and let it come to a boil. Once it's boiling, reduce the heat and gently drop the noodle strips in. Boil it for about 5 minutes.
• The noodles will puff up a bit. Once they do, remove the water and transfer the noodles to a strainer. Set aside.
• Heat a pan with oil on medium heat, and slowly add the boiled noodles to the pan. Ensure that every single strip is frying on both sides. The noodles should become crispy but not fried so much that they start to brown.
• Remove the noodles from the pan and place onto a plate with tissue on top, so that it can absorb the excess oil. Set aside to cool.
• In the meantime, take the sugar, water and honey in a pan. Let it heat till it comes to a boil. Once incorporated, turn off the heat and add the roasted sesame seeds and mix well. Set aside.
• Once the honey syrup has cooled down a bit, toss the fried noodles into it until each strip is well coated with the honey mixture.
• Serve the darsaan with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

Notes, tips and tricks:

• Add the water a little at a time when making the dough. You don't want it to be too runny, so don't add all the water at one go. See how much you need and add accordingly. Remember that the dough does not have to be too soft. Adjust accordingly, not adding too much water.
• Don't let the dough sit out for too long before you start rolling it. It’s already hard and letting it sit out will harden it more.
• Make sure you roll out the dough very evenly. Try to make each strip as similar looking in size as possible.
• Don't worry about keeping the dough strips straight as you boil and then fry them. The beauty of darsaan is in being slightly messy,
• Along with the sugar, add a pinch of salt to the dough.
• When making the syrup, turn off the heat before adding the honey. Coat the strips thoroughly, without letting it sit out for too long, or it will harden. You want the mixture to already be coated on the strips before it starts to harden.
• Place the darsaan on the plate in a rough circular shape. And add the vanilla ice cream scoop on top, in the middle of the noodle circle. This is just a fancier way of serving it.