813 recipes. Page 28 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
The white fish is pan-fried until golden, then braised in soy sauce, sugar, ginger, green onion, and cooking wine until the sauce turns glossy. The sauce is poured in around the edge of the pan, not over the fish, to keep the seared crust from lifting off.
Glass noodles, shrimp, squid, pork, napa cabbage, and wood ear fill a clear chicken broth, finished with half a hard-boiled egg on top. The dish came from Fuzhou in China's Fujian province, where it was a celebration food, and reached Kumamoto by way of Nagasaki in the late Meiji era. Today it appears at Chinese restaurants and home tables in central Kumamoto as lunch, dinner, or a meal after drinking. The seafood is added only after the pork and firm vegetables have cooked, which keeps the shrimp and squid from turning rubbery. To keep the broth clear, the glass noodles are boiled and rinsed separately, warmed in the soup only at the end, and the heat is cut as soon as the sesame oil and scallion are added.
Sugar melted to a deep caramel coats chunks of pork belly before soy sauce, dark soy, Shaoxing wine, ginger, and scallion go in for a slow, quiet braise. At the end the reduced sauce clings to the pieces as a thin reddish-brown glaze rather than leaving them in broth. The caramel is the moment that decides the dish: a few seconds too long and the whole sauce turns bitter.
Beef shank, first fried with doubanjiang (fermented chili bean paste), simmers in a soy broth until it splits under a chopstick, then goes over wheat noodles in big chunks. The broth is dark with soy and only gently hot, and a few blanched bok choy leaves add some green.
The sea bass cooks in something close to steam inside wet washi, which holds in the fish's own moisture while the paper soaks up surface oil, leaving the flesh moist without heaviness. In Matsue, Shimane, Lake Shinji sea bass is cleaned through the gills (the tsubo-nuki method) so the belly stays uncut, then wrapped whole and opened at the table at autumn and early-winter banquets, when the fish carries more fat.
A pork bone broth thickened with sesame paste and miso turns creamy and heavy, and pork mince fried with doubanjiang, a Sichuan chili bean paste, sits on top with a slick of chili oil. In this Japanese ramen take on Sichuan dan dan noodles, there is plenty of soup and sesame leads the flavor. The sesame paste and miso get a brief stir over low heat before any stock is added, which draws out their nutty aroma, but they come off before they brown. The stock is then whisked in a little at a time so no lumps remain. The pork fries until its moisture cooks off and the edges brown, and the heat drops to medium if the doubanjiang starts to scorch. Shake the boiled noodles well, since extra water dilutes the thick broth fast.
Idli are plain, spongy steamed cakes made from fermented rice and urad dal batter, and their job is to soak up sambar, a tangy, warm lentil stew. This version starts from ready-made idli batter, skipping the soaking, grinding, and overnight fermentation.
Sesame paste whisked into chicken stock turns the broth thick, tan, and nutty, and a spoonful of crumbly pork plus a drizzle of chili oil sit on top as separate layers of salt and heat. Doubanjiang, a fermented chili bean paste, gives that pork its savory backbone, and the pork is fried until its moisture is gone and the edges brown and crisp. Stirring the bowl gradually blends the chili oil into the sesame broth, changing the taste of the soup from the first sip to the last. Peanut butter can stand in for half the sesame paste, and the amount of doubanjiang sets the heat. The noodles come out a little before the package time so they stay firm in the hot soup. Blanched bok choy adds a crisp, green bite against all that richness.
Igisu, a fine reddish-brown seaweed also called egonori, is dissolved in dashi with raw soy flour and left to cool, and it sets into a springy block with no gelling agent added. On the Hiroshima coast it is a summer side dish: the block is cut into squares and topped with a sweet-sour white miso dressing, shiso, and myoga.
Star anise and cinnamon steeped in beef broth, darkened with dark soy sauce, give this bowl its deep color and warm spice aroma, while fish sauce and a little palm sugar keep it salty with a rounded edge. The name comes from noodles once sold from boats along Thai canals. Thin beef slices cook in the hot broth for only a minute or two, and the bean sprouts soften under the ladle yet keep some crunch.
It looks like a bowl of noodles, but igoneri from Sado Island in Niigata is a seaweed sheet. Ego seaweed is cooked down, set thin on a tray, rolled up, and cut into ribbons that loosen in the bowl, then topped with chopped long onion, grated ginger, lemon peel, and soy sauce.
It tastes like Chinese home-style tomato and scrambled egg turned into a noodle soup, with sweet-sour tomato broth, soft egg curds and fresh noodles. The eggs are folded briefly and lifted out while still slightly wet, then return for only a minute at the end; fully cooked at the start, they would toughen in the final simmer. Pressing the tomatoes as they cook draws out the red juice that lets the pieces and the stock blend instead of sitting apart, and cooking them down well deepens the savory flavor. A little soy sauce and sugar only round off the tomato's acidity. Fresh noodles cook fast in the hot broth and come off the heat while the centers are still slightly firm.
Hokkaido fishing households packed iizushi around the first snow to carry them through winter, and the fish changed from coast to coast: hatahata, hokke, salmon, herring, or saury. Salted fish, daikon, carrot, and ginger are pressed in layers between rice and rice koji for a lactic ferment that is shorter than for many narezushi, which keeps the aroma mild. The fermenting is not done at home here; a refrigerated, finished product from a licensed maker is served with grated daikon and yuzu peel.
Pork back bones and trotters boil hard for hours until their collagen and fat emulsify into a milky broth thick enough to feel sticky on the lips. Soaking and blanching the bones beforehand cuts down the porky smell. That rolling boil is the opposite of the gentle simmer used for clear stocks, and it is what separates tonkotsu from an ordinary pork soup. When the pot runs low, it is topped up with hot water, never with a lower flame. Thin, firm noodles, pork belly chashu braised in soy sauce and mirin, a soft-boiled egg, and sliced green onion top the bowl. The chashu slices thin most easily when made a day ahead and chilled, and the eggs marinate in its braising liquid.
Bound only with flour and no breadcrumbs, the squid and vegetable mixture fries to a browned, crisp outside while the knife-chopped tentacles stay springy inside. The dish comes from the Tsugaru region of Aomori and is said to have started in the postwar years as a way to use squid legs left over from sashimi along with vegetable trimmings, and it is still everyday food at markets and prepared-food counters.
Dipping cold-rinsed thick noodles a mouthful at a time into a hot, reduced pork bone broth keeps the chewy bite and the warmth of the soup separate until the end. The dipping broth simmers for about 15 minutes until it tastes far stronger than ordinary ramen soup, strong enough to season cold noodles in a quick dip. The miso has to dissolve completely, since lumps leave the broth uneven and cloudy. The noodles boil a little under the package time, and the cold rinse firms them so they hold their spring. Rubbing off the surface starch and shaking the noodles dry keeps them from watering down the concentrated broth. Chashu, bamboo shoots and a soft-boiled egg sit with the noodles, not in the broth.
Young sand lance, only 3 to 4 cm long, are reduced with soy sauce, sake, mirin, coarse sugar, and ginger until the pot is nearly dry. As they cook, the glossy fish bend and darken until they look like rusty nails, which is where the name kugini (nail simmer) comes from. This is a preserve from the Ise Bay coast of Mie, made in spring when the young fish are in season, and its sweet-salty glaze is eaten with plain rice.
A quick winter supper from farm kitchens in Kagawa, uchikomi-jiru cooks fresh, slightly thick noodles directly in a root-vegetable miso soup. Kagawa's celebrated handmade udon is boiled on its own; this everyday dish skips that step, and the flour on the noodles thickens the broth. Low rainfall made the region good for growing wheat, and the Seto Inland Sea supplied the dried sardines for the dashi.
Imam bayildi is not served warm; it waits in the fridge until fully chilled. This Turkish dish is eggplant peeled in stripes, filled with browned onion and tomato, and braised gently in olive oil, and on a cold plate nothing hides the taste of that oil. That is why the recipe asks for a good extra virgin olive oil.
Squid, shrimp, cabbage and onion simmer in chicken stock, then starch slurry binds it into a glossy gravy that is poured hot over wheat noodles. There is no chili, so the flavor is mild, built on oyster sauce and seafood. The noodles are drained but not rinsed cold, letting the warm sauce work its way between the strands.
Unripe green papaya is treated here as a vegetable, and once cooked its firm but tender bite is often compared to daikon. In the Yaeyama islands of Okinawa, families picked it from trees planted near the house for ordinary meals, and also made the dish around the equinoctial observances. Pork, kombu, and atsuage (thick fried tofu) cook with it in small amounts of bonito and pork broth, seasoned with miso and a little sugar. The liquid ends up as a light coating rather than soup, which keeps every piece in shape and the miso mild.
Shrimp and pork wontons, thin Hong Kong egg noodles and bok choy each keep their own texture in a clear pork bone broth. Stopping the mix as soon as the filling turns tacky, before the shrimp are fully crushed, keeps springy pieces in each bite.
Despite a name linked to the liquid that tofu and vegetables release, this simmer from central and eastern Tottori ends with only a shallow layer of broth in the pot. Chicken thigh, firm tofu, burdock, carrot, shiitake, fried tofu pouch, konjac, and Japanese leek cook together in a small amount of soy-seasoned dashi, and the pieces are plated whole rather than ladled like soup.
With no broth at all, a soy, oyster sauce and mirin glaze clings to thick udon, salty with a little sweetness. Udon still wet from rinsing drops the pan temperature and ends up steamed and soggy rather than stir-fried.