239 recipes. Page 6 of 10
Noodle recipes from Korean to pasta
Simmering kimchi dumplings in anchovy-kelp stock lets the kimchi and pork filling season the broth with little help from anything else. Once the dumplings float they are cooked; boiling longer splits the wrappers. A thin swirl of beaten egg softens the soup, and the somen sits in the bowl with broth poured over rather than being cooked in the pot. It makes a quick, warming bowl for a cold day.
Juice from well-fermented kimchi, stretched with water and balanced with sugar and vinegar, becomes a chilled sweet-sour broth for thin somen. Since nearly all the flavor comes from the kimchi, young kimchi leaves the broth flat and short on tang. Chopped kimchi and cucumber strips on top add crunch to a light summer bowl.
Tofu, shiitake and thick udon all cook in one pot of kimchi broth that goes to the table as is, nabe style. Frying the sour kimchi in sesame oil first takes off its raw sharpness and leaves the anchovy-kelp broth spicy yet rounded. Tofu pressed dry with a paper towel keeps the broth from clouding, and it simmers while broth is spooned over it, since stirring hard breaks it apart. Only half the soup soy sauce is added early because kimchi varies in saltiness, and the rest is added bit by bit once the noodles are in. Once the udon has soaked up the soup it is ready, and any broth left in the pot can take a scoop of rice to finish.
Thin-sliced pork belly fried until golden renders the fat that everything else cooks in. Onion, scallion and kimchi go into that fat, and the kimchi keeps frying until its juice has nearly gone, concentrating flavor and keeping the noodles from turning soggy. Older, more fermented kimchi gives a deeper sour note to the finished udon.
Sweet-savory simmered tofu pockets sit on a clear dashi broth and slowly release their syrup, and the soup grows a little sweeter as you eat. The broth starts out lightly seasoned to leave room for that sweetness and should not taste salty before the tofu goes on. Simmer the tofu until a little liquid remains and it stays moist, and making it a day ahead lets the flavor sink in further. Scallions and shichimi pepper add fragrance and a touch of heat.
A sheet of sweet, soy-simmered fried tofu sits on top of the bowl, and every bite squeezes its braising liquid out into the broth. That broth is a clear dashi made from kombu and bonito flakes, pale in color but full in flavor, in the Kansai style associated with Osaka. Reducing the tofu until its simmering liquid is nearly gone puts the sweetness inside the tofu rather than leaving it in the pot. It tastes best once it has soaked in the hot soup for a moment and gone soft. In Osaka this is everyday food, eaten as an early breakfast as readily as at lunch.
Cooked white soybeans blended with sesame seeds make a thick, nutty soy milk that is chilled and poured over somen. Skimming off the loose skins while rinsing the beans keeps bitterness out of the broth, and one pass through a sieve removes the gritty bits for a much silkier soup. Seasoning splits between salt alone and salt with a little sugar, added a pinch at a time either way. The soup needs at least 1 hour in the fridge and is blended well ahead, since ice cubes in the bowl would only thin it. The noodles get a rub in cold water and a short dip in ice water to firm them up.
Chilled buckwheat noodles get tossed with fine shreds of cucumber, red cabbage, and carrot that outweigh the noodles, and the result eats more like a salad than a noodle bowl. The dressing is gochujang thinned with vinegar, soy sauce, and a little sesame oil: spicy, sour, and savory at once. Rubbing the cooked noodles under cold water strips their surface starch, which keeps them from clumping and stops the dressing from pooling at the bottom of the bowl. The toss happens right before serving and the bowl spends only 5 minutes in the fridge, because buckwheat softens quickly once dressed. It makes a light meal on a hot day.
Thick hand-cut wheat noodles sit in the bowl first, and a stew-like gravy of beef chuck, potato, daikon, bell pepper, and tomato gets ladled over the top. This is the Uzbek kesma style: a firm dough rolled thin and cut with a knife rather than pulled by hand. If the dough keeps shrinking back as it is rolled, the gluten is still tight, and another 10 minutes of rest under a cover fixes it. Cumin seed and ground coriander give the tomato-rich gravy its Central Asian warmth. Because noodles and gravy meet only in the bowl, the chewy strands never soak up the sauce and go soft.
Laksa paste fried until dark, then loosened with shrimp stock and coconut milk, gives this Singapore and Malaysia noodle soup its spicy, creamy broth. Full-fat coconut milk matters, since its fat sets the body of the soup; light versions come out thin. Hard boiling can split the coconut milk, so it simmers gently with the bottom stirred. Rice vermicelli, shrimp, fried tofu, bean sprouts, boiled egg and lime fill each bowl.
Laksa paste fried in oil until it bleeds red does most of the work, and coconut milk and chicken stock turn it into a spicy, creamy broth. Fried tofu puffs act like sponges, soaking up that broth so they burst when bitten, while the shrimp spend just 3 minutes in the pot and stay plump. This style of curry noodle soup is everyday food in Singapore and Malaysia. Coconut milk turns thick and heavy as it cools, so the bowls go to the table as soon as the broth is poured.
Beef shank simmered for 2 hours with star anise, cinnamon and ginger yields a clear broth with a gentle spice aroma. The dish comes from Lanzhou in Gansu province, where the noodles are hand-pulled; store-bought Chinese wheat noodles stand in for them. Keeping the pot at a quiet simmer the whole time decides whether the broth stays clear. Daikon, sliced beef, cilantro and chili oil finish each bowl.
Unlike chow mein, which gets fried until crisp, lo mein tosses boiled noodles gently with sauce so they stay soft and glossy. Soy sauce, oyster sauce and a little sugar make a salty, faintly sweet coating, mixed in advance so the seasoning spreads evenly during the brief toss. Half cooking the shrimp before the vegetables go in keeps it from toughening while everything is tossed, and the broccoli and carrot come off the heat while still bright and crisp. The noodles are plated the moment the sauce turns glossy, since left in the pan they dry out. Chicken or beef works in place of shrimp with the same steps.
Maesaengi, a seaweed as fine as hair, and plump fresh oysters give this knife-cut noodle soup a deep taste of the sea. Because the noodles cook first and the seafood is added only at the end, the oysters stay plump and the seaweed keeps its bright green color.
Wide, thick noodles take on the numbing tingle of Sichuan peppercorns, the heat of chili oil, the tang of black vinegar and the fermented saltiness of doubanjiang (chili bean paste) all at once. The numbing note comes from warming the peppercorns briefly in chili oil over low heat, pulled off before they darken or smell scorched. Heat is best adjusted with the amount of doubanjiang rather than more chili oil, which keeps the flavor clean. Because the noodles are so broad, a sauce with oil floating on top seasons them unevenly, so the sauce gets stirred to the bottom and the noodles are tossed hard. Boiled 1 minute short of the package time, they stay chewy to the last bite. Bok choy blanched in the noodle water adds a crisp, green bite between the oily strands.
No broth at all: hot, thick noodles are tossed with chili-oil pork, chives, scallion, fish powder, and a raw yolk until everything coats the strands. The noodles skip the cold rinse so they reach the bowl hot and the yolk loosens into a sauce. The pork must be cooked down until no thin liquid remains in the pan; otherwise water pools at the bottom and the mix turns uneven. Spreading the toppings in a ring instead of one pile keeps the flavor from bunching up when everything is mixed. Fish powder and nori bring the savory depth a soup would normally supply.
Somewhere between a soup and a sauced noodle dish, mee bandung from Johor in Malaysia covers soft yellow wheat noodles with a thick red gravy of shrimp stock, tomato paste, and chili paste. A starch slurry at the end gives the gravy enough body to cling to every strand, the texture that defines the dish.
Mashed sweet potato loosened with chicken stock becomes a thick gravy ladled over yellow wheat noodles in this Malaysian dish. Curry powder and peanut butter layer spice and nuttiness over the potato's natural sweetness, and the result sits closer to a spoon-coating sauce than a broth. Mashing the potato while it is still hot keeps lumps out of the gravy. Halved boiled eggs and lime finish the bowl.
Tamarind leads the flavor, sour and fruity, with fish sauce and sugar rounding it into a sweet-salty tang. Despite a name that points to Siam, the dish belongs to Singapore and Malaysia rather than Thailand. Thin rice vermicelli is soaked, then stir-fried hard and fast so the sauce soaks in without the noodles breaking down. The shrimp are only seared at first and finish cooking alongside the noodles and bean sprouts, which go out with some crunch still in them.
Equal measures of soy sauce and vinegar give this Gangwon-style dressing its sour edge, with gochugaru for heat and a little sugar to round it off. Finely chopped kimchi clings to the noodles instead of sitting in clumps, adding fermented tang and crunch to every bite. With little gluten to hold them together, buckwheat noodles snap apart when boiled past the package time or pressed down while mixing. The dressing is folded in by lifting from below. Several rinses in cold water wash off the surface starch that would make the strands stick together. Water left on the rinsed noodles thins the dressing fast, which makes thorough draining as important as the chill.
Turmeric and fish sauce tint the pork yellow and season it before it ever meets the pan, and that colored fat ends up in the broth. Mi quang, from Quang Nam province in central Vietnam, uses only enough of that concentrated broth to moisten the noodles, so the bowl eats more like dressed noodles than soup. Shrimp cooked separately and briefly stays tender, and bean sprouts with peanuts added at the last moment keep their crunch against the soft rice noodles.
Kecap manis, Indonesia's thick sweet soy sauce, caramelizes the moment it hits a hot wok and lacquers the egg noodles a deep, glossy brown. That sweetness is what sets Javanese mie goreng apart from Chinese-style fried noodles, and a spoonful of sambal keeps it from turning cloying. Shallots and garlic fried golden lay the aromatic base, and chicken thigh sliced thin cooks through in a few minutes over high heat while staying juicy. Noodles that are still wet drop the wok's temperature and leave the stir-fry soggy, and a weak flame in the last minute does the same. Java's street stalls serve it with a runny-yolked fried egg, prawn crackers, and a wedge of lime to cut the sweetness.
Bulgogi seared fast over high heat meets raw minari, a fragrant Korean water dropwort, on udon tossed in a gochujang, soy, and sesame oil dressing. The beef is patted dry before marinating so it browns at the edges instead of stewing in its own liquid.
Thick, wavy noodles sit under a heap of stir-fried ground pork, cabbage and bean sprouts, finished Sapporo-style with corn and a pat of butter melting into the miso broth. The miso goes in once the broth has stopped boiling hard, and it is not brought back to a rolling boil afterward.