813 recipes. Page 29 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Mizu eggplants fermented in rice bran for two to three months, from late summer into autumn, become the base of this Senshu, Osaka simmer. In the name, jako means the small shrimp and goko means pickles. Soaking and blanching soften the salt and fermented aroma without erasing it, and the tender eggplant then soaks up dashi, shrimp, and soy sauce until very little broth is left.
Yakisoba sauce, built on Worcestershire, coats the noodles in a sweet, tangy glaze, and bonito flakes laid on the hot plate sway in the rising heat and add a smoky note. The noodles come precooked and need only about thirty seconds of warming to loosen before they fry, keeping some bounce instead of turning soft. Cabbage, onion, and carrot hit a very hot pan briefly and stay crisp under the sauce. The sauce is poured around the edge of the pan only at the very end, which protects that crunch, and a quick toss coats every strand evenly.
Dark soy turns this Chinese braised beef shank deep brown, and the meat is chilled until set in its own liquid before being sliced thin across the grain, with only two star anise in the pot so the spice never buries the beef.
A split hot dog bun, buttered and toasted on the inside, gets packed with saucy stir-fried noodles: carbs inside carbs, a Japanese street snack. The cabbage, onion, and carrot come off the heat before they wilt, leaving some crunch between the soft bread and the glossy noodles. A shake of dried parsley adds color and a light herbal note against the sweet-salty sauce.
Thin slices of duck breast are dredged generously in flour before going into the broth, and that coating does two jobs: it protects the meat and gives the sauce its body. This is a Kanazawa dish from Ishikawa, with sudare-fu (ridged wheat gluten sheets), taro, shiitake, and flower-shaped fu each cooked separately in the same sweet-salty soy and mirin dashi. They are plated with the duck and blanched spinach under the thickened sauce, and a small mound of fresh wasabi cuts through the sweetness.
Lime juice, fish sauce, and palm sugar make a sharp, salty, faintly sweet dressing that soaks into fine mung bean glass noodles, poached shrimp, celery, and red onion. Cilantro goes in last and is folded through lightly so the leaves stay bright. The salad is meant to be eaten right after mixing, while the noodles are still springy rather than swollen with dressing. Thick sweet potato noodles used for Korean japchae are not a substitute, since they need different soaking and cooking times.
Yogurt whisked with chickpea flour simmers into a pale yellow, tangy, smooth curry that holds fried chickpea-flour fritters with onion. The ingredient list stays short because the same besan does two jobs, binding the fritters and thickening the sauce.
With only blanched bok choy and sliced scallions on top, the clear chicken broth seasoned with light soy sauce and the springy fresh noodles carry nearly all the flavor. White pepper and a few drops of sesame oil, added at the end, give the plain broth its aroma. This Shanghai noodle soup comes together quickly, which suits a fast breakfast or a light meal.
In Kagoshima, tonkotsu means bone-in pork ribs braised with sweet-potato shochu, brown sugar and barley miso until the meat comes away from the bone. Daikon, burdock and konnyaku cook in the same pot and soak up the sweet, salty liquid.
Yuja syrup and lemon juice brighten soy sauce and tsuyu, giving this chilled udon a fruitier, sweet-sour sauce than plain tsuyu. With the sauce already balanced by 220 ml water, any rinse water left between the strands dilutes it directly. Seaweed flakes and sesame turn soggy once they touch the sauce and go on only right before eating.
Eggs beaten with fish sauce until foamy hit oil that is almost smoking and puff instantly, forming lacy, crisp edges around a thick, fluffy middle. Thai home cooks slide it straight onto jasmine rice for a meal, and it has little in common with a gently cooked Western omelet.
Chilled buckwheat noodles get dipped in tsuyu sweetened and perfumed with yuzu marmalade, a softer, fruitier sauce than plain soba dipping broth. The sauce needs thorough mixing before it goes cold, because undissolved lumps of marmalade make some dips sugary and others flat. Any water clinging to the noodles thins that sauce with every dip. Grated radish, scallion, and wasabi stay on the side and go in a little at a time.
The seaweed behind this Chiba jelly, kotojitsunomata, branches in regular forks that resemble the bridges holding up koto strings, which is how it got its name. Simmered until it dissolves, it sets firm on its own as it cools. Its sticky setting power once made it useful as an adhesive, and year-end merchants selling it for New Year turned it into a cool, plain contrast to strongly seasoned osechi. This version from the Choshi and Kujukuri coasts uses only a little salt, so the marine aroma comes through; eat it as is or with soy sauce, bonito flakes, and scallion.
Chunjang black bean paste and ground pork cook down into a thick, waterless sauce, spooned over fresh noodles and tossed just before eating. With no added liquid, it catches on the pan quickly unless it reduces over low heat with constant stirring. Frying the chunjang first drives off its harsh raw smell and brings out a shine. Ground pork has to reach 71°C, not just lose its pink color. Crisp cucumber strips cool down the salty, dense sauce.
Kakuni falls apart along the grain at the touch of a chopstick, the result of thick pork belly cooked in soy sauce, mirin, and ginger over the lowest heat until even the fat layer turns translucent. Chilling it overnight and lifting off the set fat before reheating gives a cleaner broth, and a dab of hot Japanese mustard goes on the side.
In the Tsukui area of Kanagawa these buns can hold adzuki beans, dried daikon, mushrooms or pickles; this one is filled with kabocha mashed with its skin. They are browned in a dry pan first and then steamed, so they come out soft and puffy with toasted spots still on them.
In the mountains of northern Miyazaki, especially Takachiho, bamboo is called kappo, and this dish fills a section of young green bamboo with chicken, burdock, shiitake, carrot, garlic chives, and garlic before setting it over charcoal. The ingredients steam in their own moisture and pick up the scent of the bamboo. It is an outdoor dish, made over glowing coals rather than tall flames, with sound, untreated bamboo meant for cooking.
The seasoning is in the meat rather than the coating: boneless thighs marinate in soy sauce, mirin, ginger juice, and garlic. A thin dusting of potato starch and a second fry keep the crust crisp even after it cools.
Every channel of a whole lotus root is packed with a hot paste of barley miso and mustard powder before the root is coated in turmeric-yellow batter and fried in one piece. Slice this Kumamoto dish and each hole inside the yellow rim holds its own plug of mustard miso.
The sauce is peanut butter melted into beef shank broth: nutty, smooth, and very mildly seasoned on its own. That is why Filipinos traditionally serve it with bagoong, a salty fermented shrimp paste, to spoon on to taste.
Two separate doughs, a water dough wrapped around a margarine-and-flour dough, are rolled and wound twice so that each cut face shows a tight spiral. The filling for this Malaysian curry puff is a dry curry of chicken, sweet potato, and potato with a piece of hard-boiled egg. Deep-fried, the layers open and flake, and the spiral shows only when that cut face is kept on the outside.
Arakashi acorns lose their astringency only after two days in a cotton bag under running water, and only then can they be ground fine and cooked into a starch paste that sets in a mold. Also called kashi-dofu, this acorn jelly from southern Aki in Kochi was famine food in mountain areas where little could be grown, and the long preparation often fell to elders who stayed at home. Once eaten across Kochi, it is now rare outside Aki. The firm squares are served with nuta, a dressing of leaf garlic, sesame, miso, and rice vinegar.
Tonkatsu sauce goes on one slice of bread and mayonnaise on the other, with a thick pork cutlet and finely shredded cabbage in between. The cabbage has to be dried well first, or it soaks the bread.
Fine panko fries into a firm crust on a thick pork cutlet, and with soft white bread on either side, every bite has both crunch and give. The bread is spread with tonkatsu sauce, the shredded cabbage is tossed in mayonnaise, and the sandwich is wrapped tightly in plastic for a few minutes before it is cut.