Tim's Fried Scallion and Toasted Soy Sauce Cold Noodle Recipe
A cold version of the fried scallion and toasted soy sauce noodles my mom would make for my brother and I on hot days. Can be eaten cold or hot!
You don’t need a whole lot for this!
-
A brick of instant ramen (obligatory plug of Naked Noods)
-
Scallions aka green onions
-
Soy sauce
-
Sesame oil
Start by cutting off the roots of all your scallions. Slice diagonally for more surface area, and they look... cooler for our cold noodles.
I slice mine pretty large because I like the chew, and they get to be about 1/5th the size after cooking.
Make those instant noods. Boil them for about 3 minutes. We’re using our own noodles, but generally thinner curly ones work better for this recipe. You do you though.
Look, you can do this recipe hot or cold, but it’s currently summer, so we’re doing it cold. You also get to feel… cooler doing this :D
After the noodles are done, drain the noodles. I have an awesome ramen strainer I got, but any pasta strainer or vegetable strainer will do too.
To be honest, this is why I bought the ramen strainer. Tossing it up and down to get all the water out and because it makes me feel like a real ramen chef.
Give the noodles a quick rinse under cold water, which makes the final product less starchy as well as cools it down. Set it aside and we’ll move on.
Add some oil to a wok (or something similar) and heat the oil ‘till it gets nice and hot. You want it at about medium-high setting, just below smoking.
Throw in your green onions, toss a bit so they’re coated in oil evenly, and spread them out for maximum surface area. There’s a lot of oil there on purpose, to prevent burning as well as making sure they fry relatively easily. Don’t worry, this much oil has a cool benefit later down the line.
Cook until there’s some nice maillard browning going on. How much you do is up to personal taste, but I like to keep the heat relatively high and have both a combination of browning and less charred scallion for textural and flavor differences.
Once browned to your liking, draining excess oil into a separate bowl, and reserve. Now you have some kickass scallion oil to top any of your ramen with!
Pour in some soy sauce. A little goes a long way, and you can add as needed. I’m using a dark Chinese soy sauce, which is a bit saltier and has a deeper, darker flavor profile. I try to add a little at a time so it will caramelize on the bottom rather than just boiling.
Chop some fresh scallions as well, because, well, they’re tasty and look nice. The textural and flavor difference between a fresh, fragrant spicy scallion and the charred soy sauce fried scallion is definitely worth it.
Lastly, put it all together and finish with a dash of sesame oil!
Ta da! Here’s the end result! Easy, right? Thanks for reading through! There's a lot you can do to add onto this or fancy it up (hot sauce anyone?), but it's a really quick easy recipe that only takes about as long as making the noodles themselves, and brings back a lot of good memories for my brother and I!
Enjoy!