Easy to make with very basic ingredients, San Francisco-style garlic noodles is a Vietnamese-American dish born in Thanh Long Restaurant. This is our take on this popular dish.
Connie’s Notes
What does it taste like? Garlicky, of course, and salty, but nuanced. The seasonings are oyster sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce, so, you can just imagine how rich the salty part is.
Another way to get an idea about how the noodles will roll in your mouth is to think Italian spaghetti aglio e olio. Now, give it Asian flavors and you have a good grasp of what this dish is all about.
300 grams fresh Asian noodles in the ingredients list means the weight of pre-cooked noodles. If using dried, reduce the weight to half since the noodles will double in volume after boiling in water.
Some recipes for garlic noodles include sugar which we ditched. Add sugar if you prefer using only as much as needed to get a flavor balance that pleases you.
The toppings are just as essential to the dish as the seasonings. Cheese and greens. Parmesan is the more popular cheese that goes on top of noodles but we’re partial to Pecorino. And if parsley is the default herb garnish for pasta dishes, thinly sliced scallions go on top of our garlic noodles.
Ingredients
- 300 grams fresh Asian egg noodles - (about 10.5 oz.)
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil - we used palm oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- ½ tablespoon oyster sauce
- ½ tablespoon light soy sauce
- ½ tablespoon fish sauce
- ground pepper to taste
- juice from half a lime or lemon - (optional but highly recommended)
- sliced scallions - to garnish
- grated cheese - (we used Pecorino), to garnish
Instructions
- Blanch the noodles in boiling water, drain, dump in a bowl of iced water, allow to get cold than drain again.
- In a wok, heat the oil and butter.
- Saute the garlic for a few minutes until just starting to brown.
- Add the noodles and toss thoroughly to coat each strand with the flavorful oil.
- Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce.
- Toss the noodles until the sauces have been distributed evenly and the noodles are heated through.
- Divide the garlic noodles among four bowls.
- Optionally, squeeze lemon juice over the noodles.
- Sprinkle the garlic noodles with scallions and grate cheese directly over each bowl before serving.
