Lucas Sin’s Chilled Sesame Noodles Are Your Go-To Summer Dish | Chefs At Home

there are chilled sesame noodles on chinese take on menus everywhere some people say it was invented here in new york city some people say it was invented in taiwan some people say it's invented in hong kong nobody is really quite sure but this is my version of chill sesame noodles that you can make at home and i'm gonna show you the little tips and tricks on the way to make it even better than you might get at take out [Music] hi everyone my name is lucas sin i am the chef of nicely chinese and joins the kitchen and we're making chilled sesame noodles today sesame noodles are one of our signature dishes at my restaurants we usually serve them hot but since the summer is coming we're going to do it cold today the chilled sesame noodle might seem simple to begin with but if we really pay attention to everything that goes in you can have a really elevated experience subscribe to food and wine and i'll show you also how to make a not so generic yuzu asian noodle salad as well as hong kong style bag noodles your main building block for this noodle is going to be this 100 sesame paste it's got no peanuts in it it's proper this is the way to go on top of this you're going to need a little bit of sesame oil as well as the secret ingredient of what we call furu or chinese fermented tofu other than that you need light soy sauce dark soy sauce salt sugar aged chinese black vinegar sichuan peppercorn oil and a little bit of kiwi mayonnaise first thing we're going to do we're going to make the sauce first thing into your bowl is going to be your sesame paste try to get nice 100 sesame paste most chinese american restaurants use a blend of sesame paste and peanut butter both are fine but i just like the intensity of sesame that's made with nothing but sesame second thing we're going to add in is fermented tofu that we call furu think of it as similar to a type of cheese made out of soy there are multiple variations this here is a standard issue white fermented tofu you can also use tofu that's colored a little bit red you can also get food that has a little bit of rose flavor in it it all is going to work but what this is going to do is it's going to provide us with that umami savory base note to the sesame sauce and we're going to make sure that we mash it up real nice so that it's incorporated fully into the sauce once that's good to go and you make sure that there are no lumps we're going to add basically all the other ingredients in here it doesn't really matter what order you just want to make sure that everything's incorporated so light soy sauce light soy sauce here is for saltiness as well as soy flavor on top of this we're also going to add dark soy sauce dark soy sauce is just for color we're going to also add sichuan peppercorn oil so sichuan peppercorn oil is really beautiful it's oil that's made from sichuan peppercorns it's got that little bit of a numbing effect but also has a little pop of citrus brightness so just a touch of that and the sesame oil which is going to reinforce the sesame flavor that's already in that 100 sesame paste at some point you're going to be faced with the clump that i see in front of me so we're going to switch to a whisk and just slowly start to incorporate everything you can obviously use a blender or a food processor you see how that texture is coming together now you know that it's starting to emulsify we're going to finish it off with a little bit of acidity chinese black vinegar is the vinegar of choice balsamic is a really great substitute with all that soy sauce in there you're going to need sugar bring it all together make sure that sugar is dissolved at some point you're going to see a little bit of a clump like this we're going to add a little bit of water a little bit at a time to make sure that it stays emulsified you see it was a clumpy mess now it's starting to get nice and smooth be cautious with the amount of water you add in you want it to be a little bit loose but you don't want it to be runny so it's up to your discretion really just make sure to add it in small batches so that it doesn't split it's kind of the worst case and you see how beautiful this is there you go see so final cuda grab this is the qfe mayonnaise the first time i heard about mayonnaise in sesame noodles i was repulsed but i realized that this actually gives it just a little bit of that velvety sort of like creaminess touch at the end and it's also an extra emulsifier so just about a tablespoon or so this is not an original idea i picked it up from my friends we spent a lot of time in taiwanese tree markets and this unnamed gentleman adds mayonnaise to all his sesame sauces make sure it's nice and well mixed that's what your sauce is supposed to look like so we have sauce here for four people but this can easily be made into a salad dressing if you add a little bit more vinegar this can easily be something that's really great for chilled tofu or even like a on dye salad or something like that would be really outstanding i think it needs a little bit more sweetness a couple pinches more sugar and i'm going to hit it with a little bit of salt too and the texture is pretty good for me but i think since i'm going to pour on noodles i'm just going to give it a little bit more of a touch of water you see this is the job of the chef which is to take a very very simple thing way too seriously that's how you make a difference there you go beautiful velvety ready to go [Music] done the right way to do this is to cook your noodles by package instructions we are using a flour noodle today a flour noodle has a little bit of roughness on the side so it catches on to the sauce in a nice way and this is the noodle that i prefer for this but honestly almost any type of noodle will do before you drop your noodles into water make sure you're just separating it so that it doesn't clump and it cooks evenly stir it occasionally make sure it's submerged no salt no oil you don't need any of that stuff in this pot just the noodles in rolling boiling water you want to stir it for the first 30 seconds or so to make sure that it's nice and even and it's not stuck to the bottom but after that you can kind of let it chill and let's do its thing when you think your noodles are done the best way to check is to taste the strand make sure that it's nice and tender but there's a tiny bit of bite in the middle but it's not al dente it's like maybe a couple steps after al dente the other way you can tell that it's cooked is you can see that the outside of the noodle has gelatinized it's a little bit sort of transparent so you know that those sauces are activated take those noodles out as quickly as you can to stop it from cooking so here are those cooked noodles and this is why we're not going to run this through an ice bath when you run noodles that are made especially from flour from wheat through an ice bath you end up stripping both the texture and the flavor from the noodle this flour is a deliciously smelling noodle and you would hate for that to run off into the sink the second thing is if you shock it with ice water it will also lose its texture because of that gelatinized starch in the top will all run off it won't catch onto the noodle as nicely so it's proper form in chinese chilled noodles to just let this chill as is either on the counter top or in the fridge with a little bit of oil to stop it from sticking to each other this is actually vegetable oil that has been heated up heating up the oil gets rid of some of those grassy sort of raw oil tones and it just makes it into oil that you'd be very happy to use even in a cold dish where it's not going to get cooked any further so this is oil that's just been heated up inside of a little pan and we just let it sit on the counter to cool to use for cold dishes the noodle is going to go into the fridge and you're going to chill it down until it's cold or to the temperature of your liking okay chill noodles see this right this tensile strength it's like bounciness and it's still nice and loose like this is what you want we're gonna garnish this with three things keeping it simple because this thing is so darn delicious that it doesn't really need that much else so scallions chili oil and toasted sesame seeds chili oil i prefer to make my own you can get store-bought as well nice bright color sometimes it comes with chili flakes for these scallions yes we are cooking for ourselves at home but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be slicing your scallions nice because you love yourself so a little bit of a bias to make it look pretty this is self-care right here don't cut it like a maniac just you know actually you know what i'm going to show you another way to cut this scallion time take your sharp knife in the middle of the scallion don't take it all the way down so it holds on and then you're just going to hold this right here and you're going to get nice with the tip of your knife you're going to drag and you're going to make nice little ribbons the end of the scallion is going to help hold the whole thing together and then you're going to cut off all that goes into the water so again lay it flat with the tip of your knife you're going to drag make nice little shreds on the go cool the last thing we're going to do is we're going to grind our sesame seeds yes everybody knows about toasting their sesame seeds that's all well and good but did you know you could grind them up for extra flavor toasted sesame seeds into a mortar and pestle and you will know immediately listen to that for a second [Music] the sesame seeds are popping and the whole room can smell when you start to grind sesame seeds it's ridiculous and suddenly it's gonna be a sesame noodle like you've never had before okay time to plate we're gonna make a nice little portion here you can spin either the bowl or your chopsticks to get a nice little coil here right like so generous amount of your sesame sauce right over the top you want it to cascade want people to see the love that you put into the sesame sauce you took it so seriously there you are and then scallion crowning jewel on the top we'll do white and green all sorts of chaos brown sesame seeds over the side and then chili oil for that little bit of heat and a little bit of that pop all over because that's what's going to make it there you have it chilled sesame noodle is done properly we fussed about every single element in this but hopefully it's going to pay off get that sauce everywhere there you go i've been making this noodle for five years now and we've been adjusting it here and there a little bit by little bit and it is ridiculous to me that every time you have this first bite it still seems to transcend any sort of like ideal of sesame sauce that you think could possibly exist it's creamy obviously like look at this texture right it's perfect it's velvety it's got a little bit of heat from the chili oil it's got a little bit of that kick from the raw scallions but everything in that sesame sauce is built off of umami and it's built out of this like beautiful toasted sesame flavor it's nutty and it's pure and it's like really it like tastes true that's cool that was delicious there's more deliciousness to come two more chilled noodles for you first is going to be my take on the generic asian noodle salad and the second is going to be hong kong back noodles subscribe and follow and you'll get to see the rest of them too if you're a fan of cold noodles sound off in the comments below

Channel: FOOD & WINE

Views: 672,049

Keywords: food and wine, food, wine, foodandwine.com, cooking, kitchen, how to, how to make, recipe, recipes, tips, cooking tips, chefs at home, cooking at home, pro chefs, Food and Wine, food & wine, basic recipes, culinary techniques, easy, lucas sin, sesame, sesame noodles, noodles, summer dish, summer recipe, sesame recipe, sesame noodle recipe, sesame sauce, homemade sesame sauce, sesame sauce noodles

Id: wBeuHw9kQmo

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 21 2021