Egg Noodle Soup (Soup Optional)

Egg Noodle Soup (Soup Optional)

Sorry for the late post. Made this a couple of days ago. It was super cold and I craved something warm. However, I don't really want to leave the house to get some Pho so I decided to make myself some egg noodle soup. However, this dish can easily be transformed into a warm noodle salad. Will explain when we get to it!

Now, lets make it. 

Prepare:

Start by filling a pretty deep pot with cold water and put on the stove on high heat.

Fill another pot with stock. You can use store bought chicken, beef or vegetable stock but I recently made and froze homemade stock in the freezer, so I use that. Use about 2 cups for 1 serving. Put the stock on the stove on high heat. (If you don't want soup, bypass)

While waiting for the water and stock to boil, prepare everything else.

• Vegetables: Since I have these ingredients in my fridge, my choices are cilantro, onions, sprouts. I wash the sprouts in cold water. I left it in cold water until I need to use it. Then, roughly chopped my onions. For the onions, I chose to thinly slice them since I like the taste of onions in soup. If you don't like what I used, you can use whatever you want or have on hand. 
• You can use spinach, watercress, broccoli, etc. stead of or in addition to the sprouts. 
• The cilantro and onions are for extra vegetables and garnish. You can use green onions, mint, basil, etc. instead of or in addition to the cilantro and onions.

• Protein: (if you don't want soup, just have all your cooked proteins here)
• I had hard boiled a dozen of eggs a day or two ago, so I have that in the fridge. I just used an hard boiled eggs. Peel, cut into quarters, and set aside. 
• In my homemade soup, I kept some of the meat on the bone so I took the meat on bone out of stock once it was boiled, cut it up into bite sizes, and set aside. 
• In my freezer, I have frozen beef balls from the Asian supermarket, which I defrost in cold water. Once the beef balls thawed out completely, drop as many as you want in the stock pot. 

My beef balls in homemade soup.

• Alternative to the frozen beef balls, you can salt and pepper some ground chicken (or turkey, would not recommend ground beef). Make balls out of the ground chicken and cook them in the boiling stock. Pic below. (note, in pic below, I smashed 4 1-inch lemongrass in with the balls... smelled so good! but completely optional)

Chicken Balls: I didn't make this for this dish but can definitely use it for this dish as a protein.

• Egg Noodles: this is the only ingredients you'll have to get from the Asian supermarket. OR, you can use any instant noodle, which is not as good but better than leaving the house for ONE ingredient! Take the egg noodle bundle out of the bag, and separate out the noodles into a pile. Pic below.

The bag says "New Yung Ku Noodles", I think. I like this brand the most for egg noodles.

• Other optional but tasty ingredients: 
•  Garlic Oil: I made this myself by chopping garlic to as small as possible. You don't want to put the garlic in the food processor because you don't want a paste. You just want tiny pieces of garlic. Once the garlic is chopped, heat vegetable oil in high heat (for a bulb of chopped garlic, you'll need about 1.5 cup of oil), and fried the chopped garlic until golden brown, be very careful to not to let the chopped garlic burn. You can keep this in a container in room temperature for use in other dishes (for instance, mix in light soy sauce, a little sugar, and pour mixture over hard boiled eggs. YUMZ).
• Sate Sauce, Fried Chili Paste, OR Sriracha for some heat. I'm still testing the different brands of Sate Sauce and Fried Chili Paste so I can't give a suggestion on what brand yet. If you have your favorite, use that one. :)
• Fish sauce/ light soy sauce and a little sugar

From left to right: homemade Garlic Oil, Sate Sauce, and Fried Chili Paste

Cooking:

By this time, the water should be boiling, HARD!. (lol, I just had to put it in there).

• First, you want to drop the sprouts in, let it sit for about no more than a minutes, and take the sprouts out with a strainer. Shake off any excess water and put in a large bowl you're serving in. 
• How much you want to cook the sprouts is really all up to you. I like mine a little cooked, but still have a crunch. Some people love it raw, and others love it completely soggy and disintegrated. That's the beauty of cooking, you can do whatever you want! 
• If you're not using sprouts, this is where you cook your vegetables that need to be cooked. So, throw in your spinach, broccoli, etc. :)
• Now, a more tricky part, the noodles. My mom taught me this trick to prevent the noodles from getting overcooked and soggy. Instead, her method keeps the noodles chewy and tasty! (If you're using instant noodles, just follow direction and just use the noodles in your dish)
• Get a large bowl (suggest a medium size mixing bowl), and fill it up with COLD tap water, as cold your tap water can be. (notice the underline bolded COLD). Put the bowl of cold water right next to your stove, without sacrificing safety.
• Blanch the noodles: Make sure the water is HARD boiled then drop the piled of noodles you previously dismantled from the bundle into the boiling water. Watch until you see a bubble or two, and fish the noodles out with a strainer, shake off as much excess water as you can and immediately put the noodles in the COLD water, and shake the noodles in the cold water (act like you're trying to wash off the noodles). Watch the boiling water. 
• Final cook of noodles: Once, the water the stove boiled back up, fish the noodles out of the cold water, shake off excess water using the a strainer, and put the noodles back into the boiling water. Once you see the water starts boiling again, fish the noodles back out IMMEDIATELY and shake off excess water. *note* Turn off the stove because the flour from the noodles will cause overflow. You don't want to clean that up. Trust me!
• Shake off as much excess water from the noodles as you can and put in the bowl same bowl you put the sprouts in. 

Assembling:

• Put a teaspoon or two of the garlic oil (more garlic than oil) on the noodles and sprouts. 
• Put a teaspoon or 1.5 teaspoon of sugar on the noodles and sprouts.
• Put a teaspoon or 1.5 teaspoon of soy sauce or light soy sauce (I prefer light soy sauce) on the noodles and sprouts. 
• *If no soup* Mix the noodles, sprouts with the condiments you just put in. Make sure the garlic oil coat all noodle strands. If the noodles are still sticking together, put a little more of the garlic oil in to give it a little more grease. 
• Top your dish with the proteins, garnish, and other spicy condiments you've prepared.
• *Forgo if no soup* Pour hot soup on your dish and ENJOY!.