San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles Recipe (2024)

I’ve been using my meat tenderizing mallet for smashing garlic lately. Turns it into a creamy paste. Does a great job and I’ll use it with this recipe.

I keep a large bulb of garlic, roots intact, in a small vase (one that held a hyacinth bulb purchased at Aldi works well). Use the tall green shoots from the garlic instead of scallions to add flavor and greenery to any number of dishes. The roots that grow swirl in a lovely pattern in the bottom of the vase, and the bulb will continue to produce shoots for weeks.

As a Vietnamese immigrant whose parents owned a restaurant for decades in Denver, I would like to add another essential condiment/sauce in the canon of Vietnamese cooking called Maggi. My family makes this dish using Maggi and not fish sauce. Just thought I'd offer this up as another way to make these yummy noodles. Maggi, in its iconic curvaceous dark brown bottle, is not made of soy but wheat protein. You will often that tangy saltiness in Vietnamese sandwiches.

YiaYia, a mortar and pestle crushes the garlic, releasing its flavors and oils, but a food processor just cuts it up finely, and the hard sides of the garlic are still intact, albeit smaller. But, little of the garlic’s flavor is released when it is simply cut into small pieces, so if you don’t have a mortar and pestle, it’s better to crush the garlic with the flat side of a heavy knife, and then mince it.

Have been cooking pasta in a skillet for years. Use approximately 3 cups of water per 12 oz of pasta in 12-inch skillet. Turn heat to high. Cook approximately 10 minutes, stirring frequently, adding more water towards end if needed as noodles absorb the water and soften. Add favorite sauce - or transfer as recommended in this recipe and toss till you are happy with the finish.

Hamish, Folks have tested this plenty of times - there's basic science to it. Here's one article from a colleague of Kenji's:https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-mince-chop-garlic-microplane-vs-garlic-pressThat said, we cook for our homes, not a lab. Process the garlic any which way you want. The important thing is someone wanting to cook.

DO not buy crushed garlic in a jar. You can get away with whole peeled garlic in a crunch. Garlic is easy to use peel a few bulbs and leave it whole in your fridge and then you will have the pleasure of using garlic in your cereal in the morning.(just to see if anyone is reading)

Unusual for me, completely followed the recipe, no changes. I'll never cook pasta in a pot again.Added a fair amount of the pasta water, to the end product and tasted like we had a cream sauce. This is amazing, no leftovers ...and chop the garlic however you want!

1. On a well supported cutting board, smash garlic cloves with the flat side of a chef's knife - making sure to: hold the handle of the knife over the edge of the board; center the blade over the garlic (lest you send the clove flying across the kitchen); and give the side of the blade a nice hard whack.2. Gather smashed cloves into what will look almost like a pile of pulp, and mince away.Easy; fast; efficient - and a great way to channel aggression.

I found a garlic "rocker" on Amazon while browsing kitchen utensils. I's a bent bar shape with small holes in the center. You press down and rock back and forth on a garlic clove and it pushes the garlic through the holes, releasing the most intense garlic flavor. It's much like a press, but without the messy clean up and frustration of getting all the garlic out of the press. It cleans up in about 15 seconds.I'll never mince garlic again!

I have made this dish dozens of times over the last few years and it's always delicious. I do have a suggestion, however. The amount of sauce needs to be at least doubled from what is suggested above. Keep the butter and garlic on a very low flame so the garlic doesn't burn. Turn the heat off before adding the cheese.

I think there is also a little tangerine juice to counter the garlic, as in their sumptuous roast crabs...

Fresh is surely better, but those little jars of minced garlic really do make life easier.

There are lots of vegan fish sauces and oyster sauces available, and they taste great. I live in Northern Virginia, so I get them from H Mart, but you can also find online. The vegan oyster sauce I prefer is Kikkoman. ps I just checked the bottle and it says vegetarian, not vegan - but I don't see anything in the ingredient list that's non-vegan.

1- Trust and follow the pasta cooking method - but stir to unstick from pan 2- Use all the garlic even if it seems like too much 3- Add a bit more of each of the sauces, and more like 1/2 c. cheese I ended up not even needing to drain the pasta, end result was perfectly creamy/emulsified, not greasy in the slightest. I told my Roman-born husband it was like Vietnamese carbonara. We added lots of black pepper (like the crab dish has). Anyone tried it w/ bottarga instead of cheese?

I used a food processor to mince the garlic before I read the comments. Now I'm going to lie awake all night and berate myself for not using a mortar and pestle. WHAT A WORTHLESS FOOL I AM.

I found this recipe to taste pretty salty. I plan to skip the fish sauce if I venture to make it again. I would describe the fish sauce as an acquired taste that I'm not motivated to acquire.

After seeing this on my IG feed 20x a day for months, I finally decided to get the ingredients and make it. I HATE when I’m disappointed with recipes I was excited about. Am I the only one who was expecting more of an umami bomb? I just got garlic. I didn’t really taste anything else. I followed the recipe as written and…I’m totally bummed.

Garlic lovers rejoice. Absolutely delicious recipe. I will cook my pasta in a skillet forever now. I added a little extra of all the sauces and cheese, plus 1lb of crab meat from dungeness crabs I brought back from the Oregon coast.

Oh, these are ridiculously tasty and easy. I put a bulb of garlic in a kitchen towel and just smashed away. Bucatini—decadent. But next time, absolutely more sauce. Used vegan oyster sauce and homemade vegan fish sauce. Chef’s kiss!

Delish. Added edamame and air fryer tofu. I used half the amount of garlic cloves. Easy peasy.

This was fantastic! I used tamari because I didn't have shoyu or light soy sauce in hand. Will make again with shoyu. I think the sauce would be great on fried rice.

Next time I'll increase the intensity of the sauce. Granted, I only made a quarter of the recipe, and I used bucatini instead of spaghetti, so these may have affected the ratios of sauce to pasta.

You should watch Kenji's YouTube video of him making this dish:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seY_K4P6rOM&t=395s&ab_channel=NYTCookingYou'll see (at 7'33") that he does not add the cheese until AFTER the heat is off. He explains why (at 8'32"): adding the cheese while the heat is still on increases the chance that "the cheese will clump up and turn into a congealed ball of parmesan instead of staying creamy and emulsified." I'm glad I watched the video first. Mine turned out perfectly.

Am I the only one who ended up with too much pasta and too little sauce?

Didn't have oyster or fish sauce, so I used a bit of soy sauce and some cooking water, put that into a container with an anchovy and puréed the mix. It was delicious.

Greasy

I plan to try this...but my comments are to the whole discussion about garlic....to mince, press, micro plane or crush with a mortar and pestle. I have a knife, a mortar and pestle, a garlic press, a micro plane and this Japanese grater...its stainless steel and about 6' long and looks like a giant finger splint. It pulverizes ginger and garlic into a paste way easier than any other method. Better yet, It cleans with a quick rinse under the faucet. Its a game changer.

Try putting all the garlic in a zip-top bag and crush them in a tortilla press. Quick and easy. The press is also great for easily flattening pork or chicken for cutlets. No more tedious pounding. Sandwich the meat between two plastic wrap, drop the press, and move along.

The only reason I gave this two stars and not one is that the method of cooking the pasta and the resulting texture of the sauce is excellent. However both my husband and I found the flavors to be completely unsatisfying. But I will try this method with other ingredients. it's essentially a quick cooking risotto with pasta instead of rice.