The Beauty of Simplicity. Asian Noodles for Lunch.

Today I was wondering why some people consider cooking something hard to master, or why people overcomplicate their lives when it comes to food (well,  they do it for a fuck load of other reasons but I cannot help you with that). My experience living in Asia thought me something important: there is much beauty to be appreciated in simplicity. And let me tell you, they take it to a whole new level, it was just a confirmation of a belief I have had for years: if you have good ingredients and are prepared in the right way, your food will be great and more often than not it will not take a shitload of time or effort.

If there is something that really caught my eye about Asian Food it would be that most of the food joints that serve the best tasting food have a couple of things in common:

1. They are small places. 
2. They have spent years, if not decades, perfecting just a couple of dishes, which means that their menu is often limited to those few awesome things. 
3. Their food is dead simple to make (provided you have the right method and technique)

Anyway, all this reminiscing made me think (and crave) of my favorite breakfast/lunch I had whilst living in Taiwan, 'Cold Noodles' one of those dead simple recipes so I decided to make some, and while gathering the ingredients I recalled some traditional Japanese food that I usually have with my family during New Year's time, 'Mochi' and since I am now stuck in a small village in Spain and getting Mochi  is, to say the least, a complicated task, I decided to make some Mochi inspired noodles (a common dish in Japan as a matter of fact). 

So without further ado, here is my recipe for 'Taiwanese Cold Noodles' and 'Mochi Inspired Butter Soy Udon'.

Butter Udon

Gather the Ingredients:

For the Cold Noodles you will need:

• A bit of garlic
• 2 eggs
• Cucumber
• Sesame paste
• Soy Sauce
• Bacon or Ham *
• Taiwanese Egg Noodles (Any kind of thin egg noodle would do)
• Nori for garnish

For the Udon you will need

• Udon Noodles
• Soy Sauce
• Butter 
• Sugar
• Nori for Garnish

 *If you are vegetarian you can skip this part, or you can stop being a vegetarian, whatever, I will not get into a discussion with you. 

The Ingredients

So, what now? 1. Get you eggs, beat the crap out of them and start making very thin omelettes, roll them and slice them very thinly.

Slice those omelettes

2. Get some water boiling, get your noodles in, one they are 'al dente' strain them and place them in cold water to achieve the temperature indicated in the name of the dish.

Chill the noodles.

3. Get your cucumber and remove the seeds, then proceed to julienne them, which is a fancy word for making thin short little sticks. 

4. Get you bacon into bits and put them on the heat until crisp, dry them in kitchen paper and set aside.

5. Mince that garlic (or if you have one of those fancy garlic presses I've been meaning to get my hands on you can just use that) and add it to the soy sauce, I like to have a bit of acidity too so I like putting some vinegar in there too, but this is completely optional. 

6. Soften the sesame paste and water it down until you get a thick sauce consistency.

Gather your Garnishes

7. Now you are ready to plate. In Taiwan you usually get the noodles and the garnishes separated so you can prepare them as you please. You can put all in a plate and then apply garnishes as liberal as you want. I can show you how mine look. 

Taiwanese Cold Noodles

Of course you also want something warm so you will now proceed to prepare the second dish. Lets get it done!

1. Get some water boiling and cook the noodles. 
2. In the meantime slice up some Nori seaweed, and get a hefty knob of butter (be liberal about it, come on, you are treating yourself). 
3. Strain your noodles. 
4. You want to serve this quick as it needs to be hot, so, take your bowl and place the noodles in. Immediately put the butter on top of it. Sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar on top of it, liberally apply soy sauce and garnish with Nori. 
5. Mix it up real good, the butter, sugar and soy will form an amazing sauce for your noodles. Enjoy! 

So, there you have it! 2 dish lunch for 2 people in literally 10-15 minutes. And it tastes fucking Awesome! If you are missing Asian food or you are simply in the mood for it, this lunch is for you. So get in the fucking kitchen and start cooking!!!