OT: Asian Noodle Recipe help!

[psophia17]

FIL came home with a big brick of "rice stick noodles," which are really skinny and look like they would cook up transluscent, and a second big brick of noodles labeled "instant" that look just like ramen, but 10x as much as comes in a little brick.

The instructions on both are pretty vague - cook and add sauce for both of them. What specificially should I do with these noodles?

TIA!

[bostonsmama]

you have a couple options. My step family is Filapino (Lord forgive me if I botched the spelling of that!), and we always make pancit. It's a little involved, but you can thinly julienne some carrots, celery, cabbage and garlic, add some thin cut pork and saute it in a large wok w/ vegetable oil. Soak the rice (tranlucent) noodles in hot water until soft and drain. Add to veggies and chicken, toss until crackling. Add soy & oyster sauce and finish heating. I haven't seen a recipe quite like my step-sister's, but this one looks very close:
http://maindish.allrecipes.com/az/PrkndShrimpPncit.asp

For the thicker noodles...they're really easy to cook. Put them in water and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat, cover and let sit 5 min. Drain and use in a recipe like Spicy Asian Peanut sauce:
http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=10616
This recipe is great with slices of seared flank steak or baked chicken tenders (not battered).

Or, you could make lo mein....yum!
Larissa
who is still trying to give birth so she can have more to say

[kaylinsmommy2]

I'm not sure what the rice stick noodles are. Are they flat noodles (like fettucini?) or skinny strands (like ... thinner than angel hair pasta?). Well, either way, they care cooked the same way - soak in hot water for about 15 min until soft. Drain and rinse in cold water. They can both easily be added as noodles to soup (like a chicken noodle soup). the flat ones can be used for pad thai (http://food.realsimple.com/realsimple/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=640881) although I've never successfully made it. :( If they are the skinny ones, yum! My sister, cousins and I fight over them all the time. We put it in our asian style chicken soup (I'll add a "fake it at home" recipe from Real Simple), and make a great stir fry type dish, see below that, seriously, we (as adults) still fight over to get our "equal" share! Like PP said, the other noodles are probably cooked in the same way as ramen, and probably can be used in teh same way, but don't know for sure what you're talking about. :)

Asian noodle soup
Hands-on time: 5 minutes
Total time: 25 minutes
Makes 4 servings

5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried lemongrass
1 2-inch piece of ginger, cut in half
4 ounces dry rice noodles
1/2 cup shiitake or cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced (white and light green parts only)
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
1 cup fresh basil, cilantro, or mint leaves

Hot chili oil (optional)

In a medium saucepan over high heat, combine the chicken broth, lemongrass, and ginger; heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the ginger.

Add the rice noodles and mushrooms and cook until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the scallions and remove from heat.

Divide the rice noodles and broth among four bowls. Top with the bean sprouts and serve with the fresh herb. Pass the hot oil, if desired.

If you made it from scratch: 2 hours



Stir fried type noodles

5 1/3 oz Ground Pork
2 1/3 oz Bean thread (dry rice noodle)
2 tsp Minced Green Onion
1/4 tsp Sesame Oil

#1 - 2 Tbs Minced Green Onion
- 2 tsp Hot Bean Paste (found at asian stores, but could be replace with 2tsp of soy sauce plus 5 drops of sesame oil plus a bit of hot sauce/chili oil/red pepper flakes)
- 1 tsp Minced Ginger

#2 - 2 C Chicken Stock
- 2 Tbs Soy sauce
- 1 tsp Sugar
- 1/2 tsp Salt


Soak the bean thread in hot water until soft, then cut
into long sections.

(Prepare and mix ingredients in #1 together in a small
bowl, and #2 in a seperate bowl)

Heat the wok and add 4 T oil. Stir fry ground pork
until browned, then add in #1 and cook until onions
and ginger are fragrant. Add #2 and the bean thread;
turn the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
Sprinkle on the 2 tsp of minced green onion and sesame
oil and serve. I use more noodles than recommended, becuase that's the best part! :)

Caroline
Kaylin 6/5/04

[psophia17]

It looks like I have some experimenting to do - yum!

The rice noodles are the really skinny strands, so I think I'm going to go with that recipe you fight over, and the peanut one for the ramen-like noodles...the family isn't big on eating soup, and who are we kidding, the noodles are always the best part of soup anyhow...

Thanks for the recipes! :)