Make Cold Sesame Noodles: Street Food Style| Hunger Pangs

I'm Kevin Pang. And I'm Jeffrey Pang. Today on Hungry Pangs, it's my favorite noodles. You give us 15 minutes, and we'll give you... Cold sesame noodles. 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 we live, 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 always request to double the sauce. Always request 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. Thank you, David. There's just three steps. We make the sauce, 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. Chinese sesame paste use toasted sesame seeds. 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 going to replicate the nuttier, toastier flavors of Chinese sesame paste. Okay, we've got a quarter cup of Chinese sesame paste. We're going to put this in the blender. I'll help it out. And to that, we're going to add five tablespoons of Chinese light soy sauce. Light soy sauce does not 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. My favorite. It's your favorite. If you want it 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 going to 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 going to blend this until it's smooth. We're looking for something that is spoonable, not a paste. And that's going to take about 30 seconds in the blender. And I think that looks good. Pour this into this bowl here. And that is exactly the consistency we want. 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. This is like the original whisk. You're taking a bundle of chopsticks and you're mashing it like that. Yes. You need to use a chopstick upside down. Yeah. Using the fat end of the chopsticks. Yes. All right. Beautiful. Okay. So the sauce has been made and now it's time to boil the noodles. 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 is made by egg. So the color is yellow. Okay. The egg noodles are generally yellow. Yes. 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 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? These are fresh noodles. Now, these noodles are not going to 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 going to 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, it 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 in our trusty colander, run it under cold water, and then we'll put our sesame noodles together. Our noodles have been rinsed, cooled. They're ready to be added to the sauce. If this sauce is thickening 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 mixing everything together. Oh, sure. Thank you very much. You need to do this. Make sure all the sauce will go inside the noodles. Yep. Mixed together. Yep. You want all the sauce enrobing the noodles. Okay. Look at this. This looks beautiful. 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. Okay, I'll put some here. 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? This is a cooked ham. This is cooked ham. Deli ham. You don't want to use like country ham. This is stuff that you can get from your supermarket. A lot of cilantro. And I'll take some peanuts as well. Generally, you can crush it, but because I don't have a lot of space, I'm going to use this, which I call the crusher. And we'll get. Yes, look at that. We've got some peanuts all over that. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. And finally, how about some scallions? Okay, some sesame. Sesame seed. And you like it spicy, right? Yes, I like more chili oil. Chili oil, okay. Okay. So you can have sesame noodles as simple and elegant as this, or you can have sesame noodles as customizable and grand and deluxe as that. Ready to eat? Yes. All right, let's do it. 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, wow, a little bit spicier than I thought. What do you think? It's very good. I love a lot of sauce. You know, like the sesame paste is very, very good. It's so, tastes nutty. Yeah. It's very good. So did you like eating sesame noodles as much as I did when you were a kid? Oh yes, because that's the only thing I can afford. 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. But this one's got a ton of toppings. Yes, they will charge you for everything. They'll charge you. This is a higher margin dish. This is the restaurant version. This is the cheap street food version. I'll eat either bowl. I'll inhale it. I don't care what anyone says. This is our favorite street food. What's yours? Let us know in the comments below. And for this recipe, go to americasestkitchen.com slash pang or scan this QR code. Thanks for watching. Please like this video and subscribe.