- I'm Kevin Pang. - And I'm Jeffrey Pang. - Today, on "Hunger Pangs,"
it's my favorite noodles. You give us 15 minutes,
and we'll give you... - Cold sesame noodles. (upbeat jazzy music) (upbeat music) Kevin, do you remember when
you come home from school? Do you still remember what I buy for you? - Yep, there's a restaurant
in Kent, Washington, which is where he lived, right? And they have these cold sesame noodles, and I would just inhale these noodles, and they were the most
delicious thing in the world. - Yeah, and you'd always
request to double the sauce. - (chuckling) Always requested
to double the sauce, right, and with poached chicken, as well. So we'll be making cold
sesame noodles today. This recipe was developed by ATK's test cook, David Yu.
(screen whooshing) Thank you, David. There's just three steps. We make the sauce,
(spoon tapping) we boil the noodles, and we toss everything together. Let's start with the sauce first, and you can't make sesame
noodles without the sesame, so Dad, we really want to use Chinese sesame paste in this case. - Yes, Chinese sesame paste
use toasted sesame seed. It's darker, and tastes more nutty. - I see. - Okay? It's thick, like peanut butter. - Yeah, of course, if you can't
find Chinese sesame paste, you can substitute tahini. If you do use tahini, we
suggest a darker tahini. That's gonna replicate the
nuttier, toastier flavors of Chinese sesame paste. Okay, we've got a quarter
cup of Chinese sesame paste. We're gonna put this in the blender, and I'll help it out, and to that, we're gonna
(bowl clinking) add five tablespoons of
Chinese light soy sauce. Light soy sauce, does that
mean low sodium soy sauce? If you don't have Chinese light soy sauce, you can use Kikkoman,
that works just as well. So we've got five tablespoons
of soy sauce here, four teaspoons of Chinese black vinegar, we've got a tablespoon of chili oil. If you-
- My favorite. - It's your favorite, if you
wanted spicier, add more. A tablespoon, plenty spicy enough for us. We have two tablespoons of sugar, we have two teaspoons of
freshly grated ginger, and finally, two minced garlic cloves. Since we're gonna be using
Chinese sesame paste, it's a little bit thicker, we're going to add a
tablespoon of hot water just to get things moving. We're gonna blend this until it's smooth. We're looking for something
that is spoonable, not a paste, and that's gonna take about
30 seconds in the blender. (blender clattering) (upbeat groovy music) (blender whirring) And I think that looks good. Pour this into this bowl here, and that is exactly the consistency we want.
(bowl tapping) All right, so I'm using this blender, but when you were growing
up and eating sesame noodles when you were a kid, you
didn't have a blender. - My chopstick is my blender. - Your chopstick is your blender? So how would you blend this together? - I'm ready. - Oh, you brought your own chopsticks? - Yes.
- This is like the original whisk,
(sticks tapping) or taking a bundle of chopsticks and mashing it like that. - Yes, you need to use
a chopstick upside down. - Yeah, using the the fat
end of the chopsticks. - Yes. - All right, beautiful. Okay, so the sauce has been made,
(bowl clinking) and now, it's time to boil the noodles. (screen whooshing)
Noodles come in all shapes and sizes, and generally speaking, when we're talking about Chinese noodles, we're really talking
about two different types of noodles, right? - Oh yes, the Chinese noodle
(screen whooshing) is made by egg, so the color is yellow. - [Kevin] Okay, the egg
noodles are generally yellow. - Yes, and more chewy, and the noodle, we make the cold sesame noodles, we use a white noodle,
it's made by wheat flour. - Of course, you can use
any noodles you want, but if you want this
- Yeah. - To be fairly faithful
to cold sesame noodles, you want to use thin,
white, wheat noodles. We've got four quarts
of water boiling here. This won't take long, so do
you want to add the noodles into the boiling water?
- Oh yeah, sure. These are fresh noodles. - These are fresh noodles. Now, these noodles are not
gonna take that long at all, maybe about three to four minutes, but as always, you want
to consult the package to know how long it's gonna take. Don't stray too far away from the pot, because you don't want
these to get overcooked. - If you stir a little bit,
you won't stick together. I think it's done now. - All right, perfect, I'll turn this off. I believe it is the
Chinese term, al dente. We will put this
(water spraying) in our trusty colander,
run it under cold water, and then we'll put our
sesame noodles together. (upbeat jazzy music) (screen whooshing)
Our noodles have been rinsed cool, they're ready to be added to the sauce. If this sauce has thickened
up a little bit, no worries. You can take a spoonful of water, and just help thin it out a little bit, but this looks absolutely perfect, so we're going to add these noodles. Again, they're chilled,
into our sesame sauce. if you don't mind kind of
(colander scraping) mixing everything together... - [Jeffrey] Oh, sure. - [Kevin] Thank you very much. - [Jeffrey] You need to do this, make sure all the sauce
will go inside the noodles. - Yep.
- Mixed together, yes? - Yep, you want all the sauce enrobing the noodles.
- Yes. - Okay.
- Yeah, look at this. - [Kevin] This looks beautiful. - Yeah.
- We've got our individual serving bowls. Now, of course, you can just
plate these noodles as is. I know you love this dish, but you like it with a
lot of toppings, right? - Yes.
- Okay, great, so you can add almost
anything from your fridge, and let's see what we have here today. We've got...
- Bell pepper. - Red bell peppers.
- Red bell pepper. - [Kevin] Okay, I'll put some here. - A cucumber. - Now, one thing that's really
popular is shredded chicken. - Yes.
- This is poached chicken breast. We have here, this is
something that I know is very popular in Hong Kong style sesame noodles, which is?
- Yeah. Is that cooked ham? - This is cooked ham, deli ham. - [Jeffrey] Deli ham. - [Kevin] You don't want
to use like, country ham. This is stuff that you can get from your supermarket.
- Yes. A lot of cilantro. - A lot of cilantro, and I'll
take some peanuts as well. Generally, you can crush it,
(bowl thudding) but because I don't have a lot of space, I'm gonna use this,
(Jeffrey chuckling) which I call The Crusher, and we'll get- - [Jeffrey] Wow. (chuckling) - [Kevin] Yes, look at that, we got some peanuts all over that.
- Okay, look good. Very good.
- Thank you very much. And finally, how about some scallions? Okay, some sesame. - [Jeffrey] And sesame seed. - And you like it spicy, right? - Yes, I like more chili oil. - Chili oil, okay. - [Jeffrey] Okay. - So you can have sesame noodles as simple and elegant as this, sr you can have sesame noodles as customizable and
grand and deluxe as that. Ready to eat? - Yes.
- All right, let's do it. (screen whooshing) (upbeat music) - Mm. - Okay, first off, good job,
David Yu, great work on this. The sauce is just well balanced. I love the nuttiness of the sesame paste. The noodles are nice and chewy. The chili oil, oh, a little
bit spicier than I thought. What do you think? - It's very good. I love a lot the sauce. - Mm hmm.
- You know, like the sesame paste is very, very good. This so tastes nutty. - Yeah.
- It's very good. - [Kevin] So did you like
eating sesame noodles as much as I did when you were a kid? - [Jeffrey] Oh, yes, because
that's the only thing I can afford - [Kevin] (chuckling) Because it's cheap and inexpensive, right?
- It's cheap, it's inexpensive, but I would never go to the
restaurant to order this unless with my father. - Really?
- Yes, you know, because they don't sell
the cold sesame noodle, just only cucumber and cilantro.
- Yes. - [Kevin] But this one's
got a ton of toppings. - [Jeffrey] Yes, they will
charge you for everything. - (chuckling) They'll charge you for... This is a higher margin dish. This is the restaurant version, this is the cheap, street food version. (Jeffrey laughing) I'll eat either bowl, I'll inhale it. I don't care what anyone says. (screen whooshing)
This is our favorite street food, what's yours? Let us know in the comments below, and for this recipe, go to
Americastestkitchen.com/pang or scan this QR code. - Thanks for watching. Please like this video, and subscribe.
