813 recipes. Page 25 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Wide rice noodles, chicken thigh, garlic, fresh chili, and Thai basil hit a smoking-hot wok together in this spicy Thai stir-fry, also called drunken noodles. The noodles soak only until pliable, keeping a firm core so they hold their shape over high heat. Fish sauce brings briny depth, and dark soy sauce colors the noodles and adds a hint of sweetness.
Instead of rice, this sushi from the Kitaura coast of Yamaguchi uses okara, the soybean pulp left from tofu making, dry-toasted until loose and seasoned with vinegar, sugar, ginger, hemp seeds, and black sesame. Salted, vinegar-firmed sardine fillets wrap around small drums of the cooled okara. It grew out of coastal communities where rice was hard to farm, and it was made for New Year, weddings, and local festivals. Each piece pairs crumbly, nutty okara with rich fish and a clean sweet-sour finish.
Butter-seared steak, sliced thin and fanned over rice, gets a soy, mirin and garlic glaze made in the same pan. With no stock of its own, the sauce leans on the browned juices left after searing, and a deep crust on the meat pays off twice.
Charred edges and a dark, glossy coat of soy sauce, oyster sauce, and dark sugar are what set pad see ew apart from other noodle stir-fries. That char comes from the heat: in a pan that is not scorching, the sauce pools at the bottom, the noodles steam in it, and caramelization never happens. The sauce is mixed and the sugar dissolved before the pan heats, because once the noodles land there is time only for fast tossing. Gai lan, or Chinese broccoli, keeps its thick stems crisp and adds a slight bitterness that balances the sweet sauce. Eggs scrambled in the same pan catch between the noodles and add soft pockets of texture.
Grated mountain yam and egg go into the finely ground sardine, so these fish cakes puff up soft inside when they hit the oil. In Toyama they are eaten as they are, with rice or with drinks, and also dropped into oden or hot pot.
Sliced, each round shows white and pale pink glutinous rice packed into the channels of the lotus root, a red-and-white pattern meant for celebrations in Kadoma, Osaka. Lotus root counts as auspicious because its open holes suggest a clear view of the future, and the clay soil of Kawachi and Kadoma has grown it since the Edo period. After about 2 hours of steaming, the root turns sweet with a light crispness while the rice becomes chewy. Served in 8mm slices with kinako and sweet azuki paste, it eats like a dessert.
Wide rice noodles pressed against a hot wok for about 20 seconds pick up charred patches, and those toasty spots make pad see ew taste like more than soy-sauced noodles. Dark soy sauce does the coloring, turning the noodles deep brown alongside regular soy and oyster sauce, with a little sugar for sweetness. The wide strands tear easily, so they get lifted and turned in big motions rather than stirred. Kale provides the green, its stems going in ahead of the leaves.
Salmon frozen solid and sliced thin without thawing gives a first bite that is hard and icy, then softens on the tongue and releases its oil. The Hokkaido method is tied to Ainu foodways that kept salmon in snow through severe winters. Its name is usually traced to the Ainu words ru, meaning to melt, and ipe, meaning food. Horseradish and soy sauce are served alongside.
Roasting the soaked rice in oil and cooling it before cooking it in sweet azuki broth keeps the grains loose and fragrant, unlike sticky sekihan, which it otherwise resembles. On the Boso Peninsula in Chiba it was offered at the Obon welcoming and farewell fires, at harvest prayers, and at celebrations after rice planting.
Tamarind, fish sauce, and sugar decide everything in pad thai: shift the ratio slightly and the dish leans sour, salty, or sweet. Firm tofu fried golden gives a nutty base, shrimp cook only until pink, and eggs are scrambled into thin ribbons in a cleared space in the pan. Bean sprouts and scallion go in for the last few seconds to stay crisp, with crushed peanuts and lime on the side.
In the Reihoku area of Fukui, this was set out for meals without meat or fish: Hoonko, the big Jodo Shinshu observance, and funerals and memorial services. Fu, a light and porous wheat gluten, drinks the mustard vinegar miso right through, so each bite gives off sharp mustard and sweet miso together.
Shiitake, carrot and burdock, cut into thin matching strips, are spread over the rice and cooked in dashi seasoned with soy sauce and mirin. They stay on top until the rice is done. Heavy vegetables mixed down into the grains keep the liquid from circulating and leave underdone patches.
Glass noodles drink up soy and oyster sauce fast, turning clear and glossy within a minute or two in a hot pan. With shrimp, cabbage, carrot, and egg, this Thai stir-fry comes together in a few minutes over high heat.
Whole crucian carp are wrapped tightly in kombu, tied with dried gourd strips, and cooked for about 10 hours in red-miso broth until the bones are soft enough to eat, in this dish from Kashima in Saga. River and creek carp supplied winter protein when Ariake Sea fishing slowed, and in Kashima the dish is offered to Ebisu on January 20.
This is the Japanese home standby of raw egg and soy sauce over rice, with butter added. The butter melts in the middle of freshly cooked rice, and the raw egg cracked on top warms just enough in that heat to coat each grain in a silky layer. Since the egg is eaten raw, it should be very fresh.
The water used to poach the chicken breast is kept, and a spoonful goes in whenever the rice vermicelli starts to look dry in the pan. The thin noodles soak up the chicken flavor along with the soy and fish sauce and finish loose, with no liquid pooling underneath.
Thick rounds of daikon are boiled first in rice-rinsing water to take away bitterness, then moved to a very light broth of kombu and a little light soy to cook through. Most of the seasoning comes from the warm dengaku miso spooned on top, finished with fine shreds of yuzu peel. In Kyoto it has traditionally been made with Shogoin daikon, which holds its shape through long cooking.
Strong bancha brewed to an amber color becomes the cooking liquid, and unwashed rice boils in it just long enough to lose its hard center, leaving loose grains in a thin, flowing porridge. Where Nara's cha-gayu reheats cooked rice in hojicha, this Yamaguchi version starts from raw rice in bancha and is left largely unstirred so it never turns sticky.
Chicken thigh goes into the pan first, and the fat and juices it releases carry the carrot and cabbage through a quick, high-heat toss. Water or stock is added only a spoonful at a time, so the egg noodles drink it up along with the soy and oyster sauce and no broth is left in the pan.
Takuan pickled the year before, by now salty and sour, gets sliced thin and boiled several times in fresh water before a gentle simmer in dashi, soy sauce, and mirin. Because a perfectly edible pickle is given extra work to become a new dish, it is also called zeitaku-ni, the luxurious simmer. Red chili and white sesame finish this Fukui side, which goes with rice, sake, or ochazuke.
Warm soy tare goes over the tempura the moment it lands on the rice, and the grains take the sauce while the tops of the shrimp, sweet potato and eggplant stay freshly crisp. Shallow cuts along each shrimp's belly let it lie straight across the bowl.
An orange shrimp sauce colored with annatto blankets thin rice noodles, finished with boiled egg and a squeeze of lime. Shell-on shrimp are worth buying, because the savory depth comes from a stock made with their shells and fish sauce.
The eggplant is cut into big cubes and browned on its cut faces before it goes anywhere near the coconut milk curry sauce. Raw eggplant would drink up oil and liquid and go limp; seared first, the cubes keep their corners after simmering and taste toasty where they hit the pan.
The eggs are cooked first until barely set and lifted out, then large tomato wedges go into the same pan with soy sauce and a little sugar. Some of the tomato breaks down into a thin sauce and the rest stays in pieces. The eggs return for a quick fold, and whatever red juice is left in the pan goes over the rice too.