Mike Le - That Noodle Life: Soulful, Savory, Spicy, Slurpy

soulful, savory, spicy, slurpy

Mike le and Stephanie Le

Creators of i am a food blog

Photography by Mike Le

Workman Publishing New York

Noodles can mean different things to different people. For some, they are a comforting bowl of chicken noodle soup; for others, theyre a crazy-exotic spice bomb. They can be a quick weeknight dinner or a 48-hour multicomponent undertaking. A bowl of noodles can instantly transport you to happy childhood memories or distant lands. A plate of pasta can be just like Mom used to make itor it can be the restaurant dish of your year. There are many ways to interpret noodles, but among them is one universal constant: Noodles make people happy.

Whether they are long or short, loopy or straight, noodles may be one of the most common food items in the world. Nearly every culture has a celebrated homegrown noodle dishfrom macaroni to fideos, from udon to phomeaning theres a very good chance that most of us have tucked into a heap of incredible noodles at some point. And, thanks to the recent invention of instant noodles (or instant ramen, or pot ramen, or any of the hundred other names used to describe those dehydrated, super-quick noods), a huge number of us have probably enjoyed the exact same kind of noodles. In short, noodles unite us.

For the two of us, theres no question that noodles are our favorite food. We love noodles so much that weve stood in line for three hours in the middle of December in Tokyo for tsukemen, and weve braved the harsh Italian summer sun for authentic tagliatelle Bolognese. Weve spent countless hours perfecting our homemade pasta and long, late nights figuring out just the right ratio of flour to water for our ramen noodles. Theres no other food for which weve gone to such lengths. It wouldnt be a stretch to say that weve traveled a lot of the world in search of authentic and amazing noodles.

Writing this book meant that weve spent years thinking only about noodles. For months we lived, breathed, and, most importantly, ate noodles of all kinds. This book is chock-full of the tips, tricks, and techniques that we discovered as a result of our (un)healthy obsessionas well as the things weve picked up in our more than ten years immersed in the professional food world.

Good noodles come from the heart. Noodles are about having fun with your food, slurping the long ones and scooping the short ones and smiling as you eat. Good noodles are about the little details, the toppings, the work thats gone into the broth or sauce. Noodles are a tiny universe on your table.

Weve spent long hours thinking about how to make this book easy and fun to use, and yet somehow also a master class in noodles. Weve luxuriated in pages and pages of noodle notes, ingredient guides, and from-scratch noodle-making techniques. If you read and cooked this book from beginning to end, you would be, if not a noodle master, at least a seasoned noodle pro. We hope that by the end of this book, youll be able to throw together an amazing fresh-from-scratch pasta dish (like our Over-the-Top Bolognese with Pappardelle, page 201, pappardelle and all), or create your own seasonally inspired ramen (Super Creamy Chicken Miso Ramen, page 221), or impress your friends by making Chinese take-out classics (Spicy Sesame Chili Oil Noodles, page 55) in less time than it takes for delivery. We want this book to make you fall deeper in love with noodles.

Theres not nearly enough space in this book to cover all the noodles in the world, so instead weve focused on our very best and most beloved dishes. There are recipes from places weve visited and those weve invented and refined over years and years. Sometimes these recipes are quick and easy, and sometimes they are long and labor intensive, but we know they are rock solid and reliable, and they arewe thinkalways worth the time invested. Weve meticulously tested and retested these recipes, changing ingredients and adjusting steps to make sure theyre the best noodle recipes we could create. Where possible, in addition to providing a recipe for a traditional dish, weve also shown the building blocks of it (youll find these components pages in the Hello, My Name Is sections throughout the book) so you can riff off our ingredient choices and make the dish your own. We really hope you give these recipes a try, make some noodles from scratch, and live your best noodle life.

Mike and Steph

In this book, we suggest a lot of different types and shapes of noodles. While we always aim to match the ideal shape to each dish, sometimes you need to make a substitution, and thats perfectly fine. Our recommendation is to try to swap like for like: wheat noodles for wheat noodles and rice noodles for rice noodles, short pasta for short pasta, long for long, and so on. For best results, try to use the same general shape; for example, if a recipe calls for curly fusilli bucati, swap in spiral-y rotini. For a lot of the longer Asian rice noodles, gluten-free spaghetti will work great. If noodle names are as mysterious to you as they once were (and sometimes still are) to us, refer to the handy visual reference on the following page.

Since beginning our noodle journey, we have asked almost everyone we know: What is a noodle? Their answers invariably support the notion that noodles are long and made of dough. Ramen, yes, and spaghetti too, because pasta is a noodle for sure. Then we ask, What about macaroni or rotini? Are those not noodles, too? Yes, yes, our friends nod emphatically, short noodles are noodles, too. After a little gentle pushing, everyone agrees: Noodles can be long or short. However, once we get into questions like Is a dumpling a noodle? things get more complex. The automatic answer is no... but then people get to thinking about how dumpling wrappers are often made of the same dough thats used to make noodles. So are dumplings stuffed noodles? Well, ravioli are also stuffed, and everyone agrees that ravioli count as pasta and pasta is a noodle, so that means ravioli are noodles as well, and we definitely consider wontons a noodle (see page 162). Other dumplings, though, seem very un-noodley, and thats where it breaks down. Between the two of us, we cant even agree on spaetzle and gnocchi, and we havent even gotten into noodles made from shrimp and vegetables. Will we ever be able to define what a noodle is? Maybe we dont have to. Maybe we all know a noodle when we see one. After all, the noodle universe is wide and the noodle gods are forgiving.

Long, dense, hollow tubes

Like spaghetti with a hole

Sub with spaghetti