Albala - Noodle soup: recipes, techniques, obsession

RECIPES, TECHNIQUES, OBSESSION

KEN ALBALA

2018 by the Board of Trustees

of the University of Illinois

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Albala, Ken, 1964 author.

Title: Noodle soup : recipes, techniques, obsession / Ken Albala.

Description: Urbana : University of Illinois, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017047639 | ISBN 9780252083181 (pbk. : acid-free paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Noodle soups. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX757 .A428 2018 | DDC 641.81/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017047639

Cover illustration: Handmade wheat noodles, short ribs, and vegetables in beef broth. Photo by Ken Albala with assistance from Lauren Sevrin

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T his book has one simple purpose: to get you in the kitchen making noodle soup. I dont mean boiling water and dumping in a packet of instant ramen, though thats where my quest began. Im talking about really delicious soup from scratch with handmade noodles and fresh ingredients, and I intend to show you why its worth the time to make at home. There are quick and simple recipes, absurdly complicated ones, and a few that boggle the mind. This book is partly a personal odyssey, a story of my own discovery and obsession with noodle soup, interlarded with history, social commentary, plus bizarre experiments using unusual ingredients. There is some serious philosophy on how best to eat noodle soup. Most importantly, this is a book about technique, the goal of which is to have you rummaging through ethnic grocery stores, finding yourself arm deep in dough early in the morning or tenderly caring for a simmering stockpot for hours. That is, I intend to infect you with my crazed enthusiasm.

This story begins in the summer of 2014, when I was teaching a class on distillation for a few weeks at Boston University. For accommodations, I was provided a spacious dorm apartment high above Commonwealth Avenue sporting a bright and airy kitchen. However, to my surprise, there was not a single utensil thereinnot a pan, pot, plate, or knife. Being the sort of person who prefers to be in the kitchen cooking, I was not about to be undone, especially for my favorite mealbreakfast. So I meandered for a few blocks to an Asian market, where I found an inexpensive pot, a melamine bowl, a cheap knife, some chopsticks. That should suffice, but what to cook? And then I saw it, piled at the corner of a ramshackle aisle: ramen noodles, an unusual Malaysian brand. Im not sure how I had escaped instant noodles thus far in life, but Id never eaten them before, not even in college. Maybe with some fresh ingredients they could be interesting, a few shrimp, some vegetables, and lime.

These noodles were a revelation. Spicy, sour, chewy, above all else comforting. Ramen, where have you been all my life? I wasnt happy about eating the dried soup mix, but at least I would have a good staple for breakfast that I could manage with my makeshift utensils. As the days passed, I started getting more adventurous, slipping in some thinly sliced chicken or pork, a handful of cilantro, or a drizzle of coconut milk. The possibilities seemed endless. I was hooked.

When I got home to California, I was determined to reconstruct that first noodle soup experience from scratch. Little did I know that making broth from fresh ingredients is absolutely simple. Even a deep rich stock can be made overnight in the oven and takes no effort at all. Noodles too can easily be made from just flour and water. There are actually dozens of types of flour that can be rolled and cut by hand without any equipment. I had owned a hand-cranked noodle machine for years but was finding it far more pleasurable to roll them by out myself as a kind of meditative experience. I was on a mission to taste every possible noodle soup combination around the world. Ive never looked back at the instant ramen.

Two and a half years later, I still devote maybe 15 to 30 minutes every morning to a new noodle soup, varying with the weather, the season, and my mood. Sometimes I use frozen stock made on the weekend or noodles rolled out in my spare time. When pressed for time, I might use a stock concentrate and a store-bought noodle. The fact is, nothing needs to be instant or poor quality. A rich satisfying soup made with fresh ingredients can be as simple or as complicated as you like. And of course it can be made for lunch or dinner as well. Some days I had noodle soup both for breakfast and dinner. Now I am determined to show you how its done.

A NOTE ON SERVING SIZES

Partly because I make these noodle soups for my own breakfast, recipes throughout the book are for a single serving. Also, many people cook for themselves nowadays. Then theres the simple fact that multiplying anything by one is much easier than figuring out how to increase a recipe for four servings when you have seven people or something like that. Normally I would say, what does it matter? Make a little extra and youll have leftovers. With stock and some ingredients sure, but noodles, alas, have but one life to offer. When left over soaking in soup they become a soggy mess and never improve overnight in the fridge. So my intent is to provide recipes for a fairly hearty serving that constitutes a whole meal. If served as a first course or a smaller meal, naturally, reduce as you see fit.

So you can get a sense of what a serving size means in this book, generally I put 4 ounces (113.398 grams) dried noodles in a soup or use dough made from 1 cup flour (946 ml), then formed into noodles, which is about the same in the soup. Sometimes I overshoot, but a ball of dough about the size of a persons fist should feed that same person. About 4 ounces meat or less is also plenty for a bowl of soup, and about the same of vegetables. I never actually weigh these, but I do believe that a bowl of noodle soup should be balanced like a good plate with carbs, vegetables, and protein in roughly equal proportion.

The quantity of broth for each recipe was a lot more tricky to gauge. When I freeze broth its in 3-cup (24 fluid oz.) containers, which does make a fine serving. But if youre cooking the noodles right in the pot you might need 4 cups, especially if the noodles are dried, because they soak up liquid, and you end up having to add water, diluting the broth. On the other hand if you are adding cooked noodles to a bowl, 2 cups broth is often fine. In the recipes that follow I have called for 3 cups liquid as a rule. I figure that its always better to have a little extra liquid than too little. And noodles are happier cooking in a bit more liquid than a bit less. If you have extra broth that doesnt fit in your bowl, strain and refrigerate it and use it the next day.

When exact measurements are needed, I provide them, though my instinct is really to let you decide how much you want to eat. Even the measurements are not intended to be slavishly followed. In fact, I hope you try my proportions once, then move on to your own, cook according to your own taste preferences. Oftentimes I simply describe a procedure rather than offer a full recipe. This is always either because I have provided a recipe elsewhere or because the procedure is so simple that a recipe would be ridiculous to write out. Apparently I am inordinately fond of sour flavors, so the juice of a whole lime might go into a soup, or a huge handful of cilantro. If you prefer less, by all means put in what you like. If you want more meat, go ahead. I have no qualms about your substituting anything herein fact, I applaud it.