allie noodles
as a kid our family often went on sundays to this noodle place nearby church. i don't remember being particularly effusive about liking the place, but for some reason it became known as "allie noodles" among our family friends because well, allie liked it.
the prices went up and we generally stopped eating there, but i've been a handful of times in the past ten years or so and i have to say, every time i go there, it's always not quite as good as i remembered it. as i get older, i find that happens to a lot of things i enjoyed eating in childhood - maybe my tastebuds have changed, the food has changed, or even worse, it's really just not as good as i thought it was? see hostess snowball. does that happen to anyone else?
all that to say, though the noodles may be not quite as good as when i was ten, i still really love this style of noodle dish, hu tieu:
From Andrea at vietworldkitchen: "At its core, hu tieu(pronounced "hoo tee-u") signals a Chinese-Southeast Asian style noodle soup made with a pork bone broth and no fish sauce. But that's where simplicity ends. The noodles in a bowl of hu tieu can be chewy clear tapioca noodles, opaque white rice noodles like you'd use for pho noodle soup, or thin Chinese egg noodles (mi). The toppings cover a wide territory, and may include boneless pork, pork ribs, pork offal, shrimp, squid, wonton dumplings, fried garlic, fried shallot, and/or scallion." http://vietworldkitchen.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/hu-tieu-nam-van.html
my favorite part is the pork kidneys...mmmmm pork offal...it's so tasty when you dip the toppings in rooster sauce, hoisin sauce, and add sliced jalapenos that have been soaking in vinegar.
a couple coworkers and i went to a hu tieu noodle place yesterday and i really wanted it again today, but decided to do a google search to see if i could make it at home, and i came across Andrea Nguyen's recipe: http://vietworldkitchen.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/hu-tieu-nam-van.html
i got six pounds of pork neck bones:
a giant dried squid:
and two hours of boiling later, came out with this!
(this is before the broth was added, which was a satisfying beige color):
dunno if you can see, but there's bean sprouts, chinese celery (tastes like a strong regular celery), thai peppers, pork shoulder, beef meatballs, crispy shallots and garlic, and ground pork. j likes the ho fun, but i like the egg noodles. usually at a restaurant you can request half and half, snap.
the recipe worked really well and was straightforward - the broth calls for dried squid and dried shrimp, which gives the soup a really great unami flavor. i've asked for no MSG before at the restaurant and the broth comes out kind of bland, but the addition of the squid and shrimp in this recipe hits that salty sweet flavor that makes it really tasty. if you like hu tieu noodles, try this recipe! or even if not, try it anyway!
this recipe made a large pot of stock so if i buy more noodles we can probably get 8 hearty servings total from it, for around $3 dollars a bowl. it would probably run about $6.50 -8.50 before tax and tip at a restaurant, so victory there!
the prices went up and we generally stopped eating there, but i've been a handful of times in the past ten years or so and i have to say, every time i go there, it's always not quite as good as i remembered it. as i get older, i find that happens to a lot of things i enjoyed eating in childhood - maybe my tastebuds have changed, the food has changed, or even worse, it's really just not as good as i thought it was? see hostess snowball. does that happen to anyone else?
all that to say, though the noodles may be not quite as good as when i was ten, i still really love this style of noodle dish, hu tieu:
From Andrea at vietworldkitchen: "At its core, hu tieu(pronounced "hoo tee-u") signals a Chinese-Southeast Asian style noodle soup made with a pork bone broth and no fish sauce. But that's where simplicity ends. The noodles in a bowl of hu tieu can be chewy clear tapioca noodles, opaque white rice noodles like you'd use for pho noodle soup, or thin Chinese egg noodles (mi). The toppings cover a wide territory, and may include boneless pork, pork ribs, pork offal, shrimp, squid, wonton dumplings, fried garlic, fried shallot, and/or scallion." http://vietworldkitchen.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/hu-tieu-nam-van.html
my favorite part is the pork kidneys...mmmmm pork offal...it's so tasty when you dip the toppings in rooster sauce, hoisin sauce, and add sliced jalapenos that have been soaking in vinegar.
a couple coworkers and i went to a hu tieu noodle place yesterday and i really wanted it again today, but decided to do a google search to see if i could make it at home, and i came across Andrea Nguyen's recipe: http://vietworldkitchen.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/hu-tieu-nam-van.html
i got six pounds of pork neck bones:
(this is before the broth was added, which was a satisfying beige color):
dunno if you can see, but there's bean sprouts, chinese celery (tastes like a strong regular celery), thai peppers, pork shoulder, beef meatballs, crispy shallots and garlic, and ground pork. j likes the ho fun, but i like the egg noodles. usually at a restaurant you can request half and half, snap.
this recipe made a large pot of stock so if i buy more noodles we can probably get 8 hearty servings total from it, for around $3 dollars a bowl. it would probably run about $6.50 -8.50 before tax and tip at a restaurant, so victory there!
Comments