noodles | Jenna's Everything Blog

The fact that I haven’t shared a recipe in so long should really highlight that: this recipe is worth sharing.

No surprise, America’s Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook blasted us away with another awesome number. After realizing my life wouldn’t be complete until I shared it with you all, I made it a second time just for the purpose of blogging.

Think: amazing pork. Amazing mushrooms. Amazing texture. Amazing and I love it.

Okay, wow. Obviously I haven’t blogged about food in way too long, because I can’t think of a single adjective beyond “amazing,” which is such a subjective evaluation that it means nothing to anyone . . . so let’s try again.

Umm . . . it’s got umami! That magical salty/sweet/savory thingamaging that I barely understand but know that I love. It tastes fresh and light but also has depth. The pork is so flavorful and juicy it makes me want to become a vacuum cleaner just so that I could inhale it.

The recipe is a little more involved than some, but still nothing crazy. And it’s so darn good that the very first chopstick-full of crunchy green onion and delicate noodle dripping with the sweet/savory sauce makes up for any extra knife work involved. It’s good with noodles as the recipe has it, but the pork sauce itself would be great over rice too.

Even Alice endorses it!

Right, sweetie?

(Sorry, but without a gratuitous picture of Alice my mom is sure to speak up . . . so here you go, Mom! This one’s for you.)

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

¼ cup soy sauce
3 TBS sugar
2 TBS oyster sauce
2 TBS chili garlic sauce
1 TBS sesame oil
4 tsp mirin OR sake (different—but both work)
1 lb boneless country-style pork ribs, sliced crosswise thinly
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 TBS minced ginger
4 tsp peanut oil
6 baby bok choy, sliced crosswise
8 oz white button mushrooms, sliced
4-8 oz shiitake mushrooms, sliced
8 oz dried soba noodles
1 bunch scallions, sliced on the bias

1. Whisk together first 6 ingredients.

2. Combine 3 TBS of the mixture with the sliced pork and marinate in the fridge for 5 minutes. Reserve the rest of the sauce.

3. Combine garlic, ginger and 1 tsp of the oil in a small bowl.

4. Start to boil some water in a large pot for the noodles.

By the way, I’d never cooked with soba noodles before. So in case this is helpful to anyone, here’s what my package of noodles looked like:

5. In a large 12’’ nonstick skillet, heat 1 tsp oil. When shimmering, add half the pork in one layer. Let it sit for 1 minute, then stir for 2 more minutes until browned. Remove, and repeat with the remaining pork.

6. Heat the last teaspoon of oil in the now-empty skillet. When hot, add the mushrooms and bok choy; cook 5-7 minutes, until browned.

7. Clear a space in the center of the skillet and add the garlic/ginger/oil mixture. Smash it around with your spatula and cook for about 30 seconds, until fragrant.

8. Add the pork and sauce to the skillet; stir it all around and simmer for about 1 minute, until the sauce has thickened. Cover and set aside.

9. When the pot of water is boiling, add the noodles and cook for a couple minutes, stirring often. Reserve ½ cup of the cooking water, and when the noodles are tender, drain them immediately.

10. Put the noodles back in the pot and add the pork, tossing them together. Add the ½ cup cooking water if you need to loosen up the mixture. Sprinkle on the green onions and serve!

Click here for printer-friendly version: Asian Fusion Soba Noodles

Can I just point out that I’ve spent almost my entire pregnancy to date not posting recipes? Partly because I’ve had a lot of other stuff to talk about–all the fun details of housing a baby in your body for the first time. Partly because I’ve been low on energy and haven’t wanted to cook new recipes that require more thought and effort. Partly because this lack of energy causes the camera to get neglected even when I do make something new and exciting. And finally . . . because of the sickness.

But at last, I have something to share! I cooked this up near the beginning of my sickness, and it’s delicious. However, in a semi-tragic turn of events, the strong smells set me against Thai noodles from the night I made this until last week, and thus the drafted post for this recipe just sat in my blogging line-up, causing me to wrinkle my nose every time I looked at it.

However, based on my positive experience with Pad Thai last week, I’m now ready to look at this thing again without feeling the bile rise! So here goes.

My sister Heidi is a huge lover of Thai food. She experiments fearlessly and works at the recipe until it’s perfection. I had her curry during our Alaska visit last summer, and . . . oh wow. She’s got that figured out (though I have yet to get the recipe from her!).

According to her, this recipe for Drunken Noodles may not be at its peak of perfection . . . but knowing her, she will probably always strive to tweak it even further. But ignore her–I think it’s amazing! She relayed me the instructions over the phone, which I repeated back to her and then actually wrote down a few days later. Then, the next weekend, I made it. Oh baby oh. It’s definitely spicy, but not burn-a-hole-in-your-palate spicy, and the noodles are cooked to perfection using her instructions. My husband loved it, and I loved it . . . except for the whole being pregnant thing. I ate it the first night, and then couldn’t look at it again after that. But my husband appreciated having the leftovers all to himself, so it all worked out for the best.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

2-3 TBS vegetable oil
1/3 cup water, optional
1/2 head of cauliflower
1 crown broccoli
2-3 carrots
3 jalapeño chilies
1 chicken breast
2 TBS chili garlic sauce
1/2 lb rice noodles
1 handful fresh Thai basil leaves

For the sauce:

1/3 cup light (low-sodium) soy sauce
1 TBS dark soy sauce
1/3 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1/3 cup sugar
1-2 TBS sriracha

Soak the rice noodles in warm water for 1 hour.

By the end, they should be pliable (they don’t snap when you bend them) but still firm and crunchy if you bite into them.

And yes, all of today’s pictures have a blue cast to them . . . oh well. Maybe there’s a way that I can blame pregnancy for that, too.

Slice the carrots thinly on the diagonal, and chop up the cauliflower and broccoli. Set these 3 veggies aside.

Slice the chicken into bite-sized pieces on the diagonal, and de-seed and mince the chilies. Place the chicken, chilies, and chili garlic sauce together in a bowl to marinate.

Rip the basil leaves off the stems, and glory in their smell. Heavenly.

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce. I will call this sauce . . . Blue Lagoon.

Make sure to use low-sodium soy sauce, or you’re in for a salty surprise! And not of the pleasant variety either.

Heat 1 TBS of vegetable oil in a wok over high heat. When shimmering, add the bowl of veggies.

Stir fry for 6 minutes, until crisp and browned. If they aren’t tender enough at this point (especially if you cut them in larger chunks like I did), add the 1/3 cup of water and simmer/boil over high heat for a few minutes, until the water has evaporated and the veggies are more softened.

There’s probably a word for this technique, but I don’t know what it is. I’ll call it “fryboil.”

Remove the fryboiled veggies.

Heat another tablespoon of oil in the wok and, when shimmering, add the chicken.

Let it sit and brown for about a minute before stirring. Stir fry the chicken for 6 minutes, or until cooked through. Keep that heat high, Mildred!

Add the noodles and stir fry them with the chicken for a few minutes.

Add the sauce.

Bring to a boil, stirring to mix it into the noodles.

Add the veggies back in . . .

. . . and stir fry everything together for a few minutes. You can use tongs to mix the noodles more easily.

Stir in the basil and serve!

Okay, these pictures aren’t at the top of my photographic “game”–but it’s so delicious that I hope you can see through the blue and through the dark into its inner core of tastiness.