San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles Recipe (2024)

I’ve been using my meat tenderizing mallet for smashing garlic lately. Turns it into a creamy paste. Does a great job and I’ll use it with this recipe.

I keep a large bulb of garlic, roots intact, in a small vase (one that held a hyacinth bulb purchased at Aldi works well). Use the tall green shoots from the garlic instead of scallions to add flavor and greenery to any number of dishes. The roots that grow swirl in a lovely pattern in the bottom of the vase, and the bulb will continue to produce shoots for weeks.

As a Vietnamese immigrant whose parents owned a restaurant for decades in Denver, I would like to add another essential condiment/sauce in the canon of Vietnamese cooking called Maggi. My family makes this dish using Maggi and not fish sauce. Just thought I'd offer this up as another way to make these yummy noodles. Maggi, in its iconic curvaceous dark brown bottle, is not made of soy but wheat protein. You will often that tangy saltiness in Vietnamese sandwiches.

YiaYia, a mortar and pestle crushes the garlic, releasing its flavors and oils, but a food processor just cuts it up finely, and the hard sides of the garlic are still intact, albeit smaller. But, little of the garlic’s flavor is released when it is simply cut into small pieces, so if you don’t have a mortar and pestle, it’s better to crush the garlic with the flat side of a heavy knife, and then mince it.

Have been cooking pasta in a skillet for years. Use approximately 3 cups of water per 12 oz of pasta in 12-inch skillet. Turn heat to high. Cook approximately 10 minutes, stirring frequently, adding more water towards end if needed as noodles absorb the water and soften. Add favorite sauce - or transfer as recommended in this recipe and toss till you are happy with the finish.

Hamish, Folks have tested this plenty of times - there's basic science to it. Here's one article from a colleague of Kenji's:https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-mince-chop-garlic-microplane-vs-garlic-pressThat said, we cook for our homes, not a lab. Process the garlic any which way you want. The important thing is someone wanting to cook.

Unusual for me, completely followed the recipe, no changes. I'll never cook pasta in a pot again.Added a fair amount of the pasta water, to the end product and tasted like we had a cream sauce. This is amazing, no leftovers ...and chop the garlic however you want!

DO not buy crushed garlic in a jar. You can get away with whole peeled garlic in a crunch. Garlic is easy to use peel a few bulbs and leave it whole in your fridge and then you will have the pleasure of using garlic in your cereal in the morning.(just to see if anyone is reading)

1. On a well supported cutting board, smash garlic cloves with the flat side of a chef's knife - making sure to: hold the handle of the knife over the edge of the board; center the blade over the garlic (lest you send the clove flying across the kitchen); and give the side of the blade a nice hard whack.2. Gather smashed cloves into what will look almost like a pile of pulp, and mince away.Easy; fast; efficient - and a great way to channel aggression.

I think there is also a little tangerine juice to counter the garlic, as in their sumptuous roast crabs...

Fresh is surely better, but those little jars of minced garlic really do make life easier.

I have made this dish dozens of times over the last few years and it's always delicious. I do have a suggestion, however. The amount of sauce needs to be at least doubled from what is suggested above. Keep the butter and garlic on a very low flame so the garlic doesn't burn. Turn the heat off before adding the cheese.

I found a garlic "rocker" on Amazon while browsing kitchen utensils. I's a bent bar shape with small holes in the center. You press down and rock back and forth on a garlic clove and it pushes the garlic through the holes, releasing the most intense garlic flavor. It's much like a press, but without the messy clean up and frustration of getting all the garlic out of the press. It cleans up in about 15 seconds.I'll never mince garlic again!

There are lots of vegan fish sauces and oyster sauces available, and they taste great. I live in Northern Virginia, so I get them from H Mart, but you can also find online. The vegan oyster sauce I prefer is Kikkoman. ps I just checked the bottle and it says vegetarian, not vegan - but I don't see anything in the ingredient list that's non-vegan.

1- Trust and follow the pasta cooking method - but stir to unstick from pan 2- Use all the garlic even if it seems like too much 3- Add a bit more of each of the sauces, and more like 1/2 c. cheese I ended up not even needing to drain the pasta, end result was perfectly creamy/emulsified, not greasy in the slightest. I told my Roman-born husband it was like Vietnamese carbonara. We added lots of black pepper (like the crab dish has). Anyone tried it w/ bottarga instead of cheese?

Really yummy. I started with some pepper flakes in the pan and used 1.5 butter. Didn’t salt water, did salt garlic in Mortar & Pestle. Husband said it’s a winner

Would this work without the cheese? Or could a vegan cheese be substituted?

adapted it a bit for more oof.-boil shrimp, take shrimp out, save shrimp water -boil egg noodles in shrimp water. save shrimp noodle water for later-sautee a lot of garlic with butter -add nuoc mam, soy sauce, oyster sauce mix into garlic butter. quick simmer-add noodles and shrimp pasta water (enough water to coat noods)-cook until everything thickens a bit-top with parmesan and spicy chili oil

I used some fresh garlic, some garlic paste in a tube from the supermarket, and barilla chickpea pasta, and it turned out wonderfully.

Initially I thought 20 cloves of garlic was a bit too muchHowever the recipe can sustain itDelicious!,

The knife trick is great for smashing garlic and has the added benefit that you can do it before you peel the garlic and the skins slip right off.

Dear God! How did Master Kenji know this is what I needed in my life!!! Amazing! Delectable! Garlicky! I added sautéed shrimp, and I'm in heaven!!! Thank you!!

Maggi has MSG, which a lot of Americans avoid, but which my son says is still very popular in authentic Asian food (he lives in Danang.)

Okay, this recipe has now entered our regular rotation! Wow; fabulous! We doubled all the sauce ingredients after reading other reviews and we added a couple handfuls of shrimp near the end of sautéing the garlic. We also served it with extra parmesan on top. I pretty much want to eat this every night now. Yup.

Watch Kenji make this dish on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seY_K4P6rOM

This dish is wonderful, as is! Fish roe would be a great addition.

These noodles are excellent with fried salmon patties and a Brut champagne. See:https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1024728-salmon-patties

The cookbook version of the recipe calls for 20 cloves (60 to 70 g) of garlic.

I freeze whole heads of garlic. Once frozen, pull them from the freezer, defrost for c. 20mins--not much longer!--and then smash the heads with your fist until most of the cloves disentangle. Then somewhat more gently smash the individual cloves--the skin should peel off easily. Really, trust me on this! Then pop the naked cloves in a ziplok bag and back into the freezer. They'll be as good as fresh in your recipes.

Ran out of soy so used a couple of heaped teaspoons of white miso paste instead. Delicious!