Hello hi everyone! Welcome back to Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to the wonderful weird world of Asian fusion foods with a request from the r/gifrecipes subreddit for a wok fried garlic noodle. For those not familiar, the concept of “garlic noodles” appears throughout MANY different food cultures, including but not limited to Chinese cuisine (it is, after all, not a very complicated concept). This of course gives us an endless amount of leeway for creative interpretation, so, for our version today, I’ll be drawing some inspiration from the Italian pasta dish “Pasta Aglio e Olio,” or more colloquially, pasta with garlic and olive oil (you may also recognize this as the pantry pasta dish from the movie “Chef”).
This dish is most iconically done with spaghetti, red chili flake, parsley, and a whooole bunch of garlic that has been cooked on low heat in olive oil for an aromatic finish. For our version today, we’ll be borrowing this low and slow technique for our garlic, but then swapping in a few classic elements that you’ll likely recognize from more traditional Chinese wok cooking, which are some dry toasted Tian Jin peppers and Sichuan peppercorn (in lieu of our red chili flake), some thinly sliced green onions (in lieu of our parsley), some toasted sesame oil (in lieu of our olive oil) and finally, some super thin fresh noodles that we’re gonna wok fry for a wonderfully crispy quality that you’ll likely recognize from a lot of classic Chinese take out. Hope you try it.
Serves 2-3
INGREDIENTS
16 oz Hong Kong Style Thin Egg Noodles
12 cloves garlic
1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger
4 green onions
8-10 Tian Jin peppers
2 tbsp Sichuan peppercorn
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup peanut oil
INGREDIENTS (sauce)
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp lao gan ma chile crisp oil
PREP
PEEL and thinly slice the garlic, set aside
PEEL and mince the ginger, set aside
SEPARATE the whites and greens of the green onions, then slice thinly on a bias, set aside
COMBINE all sauce ingredients, set aside
COMBINE the sesame oil and peanut oil, set aside
SEPARATE the noodles into 4 loose nests, set aside
ON THE STOVE
HEAT a wok at medium heat, then dry toast the Tian Jin peppers, set aside, and repeat with the Sichuan peppercorn
ADD the Sichuan peppercorn to a mortar and pestle and crush until a fine powder forms
HEAT the wok as hot as possible, then add 4 tbsp of peanut oil and long yao
ADD the noodles to the wok 4oz at a time, sear for 2 minutes, toss for an additional minute then remove from heat
LOWER the heat to medium heat, then add the oil mixture and garlic to the wok and let simmer for 10 minutes until fragrant and lightly browned
REMOVE the garlic and all but 2 tbsp of oil from the wok, then heat as hot as possible and long yao
ADD the whites of the green onions and ginger to the wok, then toss for 15 seconds until fragrant
ADD the noodles back to the wok, then toss to combine
ADD the Tian Jin peppers, Sichuan peppercorn, and garlic/oil mixture back to the wok, then toss to combine
SEASON with sauce mixture 2-3 tbsp at a time to taste
REMOVE from heat and finish with the greens of green onions