San Francisco-Model Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles Are the Most Common Recipe of the Yr
These San Francisco-style noodles are an American blend of Vietnamese and Italian cuisine
The other night I made the most popular recipe of the year, at least according to the New York Times. The recipe, which has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, is a San Francisco-style pasta dish by food writer J. Kenji López-Alt.
Its simple ingredient list includes eye-opening 20 cloves of garlic, plus fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and Parmesan cheese. Since garlic is pretty much a food group in my house, and I always have parmesan, fish sauce, and oyster sauce in my fridge, I thought I’d give it a try.
What is San Francisco-style Vietnamese-American Garlic Noodles?
This garlic noodle recipe is a twist on a classic San Francisco dish that Helene An created in the early 1970s at her restaurant, Thanh Long, where it has been famously served with baked Dungeness crabs for the past five decades. An fled Vietnam during the war, settled in the Bay Area and eventually started a restaurant empire.
In the early days, as López-Alt writes, An “felt that the restaurant would thrive by sacrificing authenticity in favor of dishes specifically designed to appeal to the local clientele.” She was inspired to create her own take on a disappointing garlic pasta dish at an Italian restaurant.
Although popular, the real recipe remains a mystery. In López-Alt’s interpretation, he calls for spaghetti rather than Asian noodles, and foreshadows the use of Southeast Asian sauces such as fish sauce and oyster sauce as ingredients. Paired with soy sauce, parmesan cheese, and all that garlic, it’s an intense, unique dish.
Why do you need 20 cloves of garlic?
Since this dish has become so popular this year, there has been an online debate about how to prepare it. One of the biggest points of debate is how to handle the 20 cloves of garlic, which are said to be “crushed or pounded in a mortar and pestle.”
Minced garlic can be obtained in a number of ways. Chopping with a knife can be tricky if you don’t have good knife skills, and you run the risk of not having consistent pieces that cook evenly. Crushing the garlic before chopping makes things quicker and a little easier. I decide to use a microplane grater instead of a knife for convenience. The risk with a grater is that the garlic can be a bit spicier or more bitter, but since I would cook the garlic for a few minutes I wasn’t concerned about that. If you have a mini food processor, that will work too. However, avoid a larger food processor, which will chop the garlic too large and unevenly.
How to make San Francisco-style Vietnamese-American Garlic Noodles
The great thing about cooking this dish is that once you learn the basics, you don’t need a recipe. Two quirks of the recipe involve cooking the spaghetti. First, the Times suggests cooking the pasta in a skillet or skillet covered with 2 inches of boiling water, rather than in a large pot of boiling water. The reason here is to get starchier pasta water that you want to reserve to toss with the pasta. The other quirk is removing the pasta from the boiling water before it’s completely al dente (about 2 minutes less than the package says). The pasta will continue to cook as you add it to the sauce to toss over high heat.
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 20 garlic cloves, chopped
- 4 teaspoons oyster sauce
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1 pound dry spaghetti
- ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
- A bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced
directions
Step 1: Combine the ingredients
Melt butter in a saucepan or wok over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 2 minutes, being careful not to brown. Add oyster sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce, stir and remove from heat.
Step 2: Cook pasta
Bring a few inches of salted water to a boil in a pan or saucepan over high heat. Add the spaghetti. Stir the pasta a few times as it cooks until almost al dente (about 2 minutes less than the recommended cooking time on the package).
Step 3: Bring everything together
Using tongs, transfer the cooked pasta to the garlic umami sauce, along with the water that is sticking to it (make sure to save the pasta water!). Bring the heat to high and add cheese. Stir and toss vigorously until the sauce is creamy and emulsified. Add reserved pasta water if it looks too greasy or dry. Stir in the spring onions and serve immediately.
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