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 wanted a side dish for snow crabs and this recipe happened to show up in my inbox. Per reader feedback, I doubled the amount of sauce, juiced 1/2 of a tangerine, and drizzled toasted sesame oil on top. I had Trader Joe's Parmesan, Romano, and Asiago cheese so I used that. I also weighed 60 grams of garlic and it was perfect and not overwhelming. I would like to try this again and substitute rice for the pasta.

If any of you ever run out of salt, just turn to this noodle dish!I made it exactly as written, and it smelled amazing, and then when we took our first bites, we all spat it out on our plates. The saltiness absolutely overwhelmed everything else. To be clear: I made it a year ago, as well, with the same result. I tried making it a second time thinking I must have gotten something wrong the first time.I have no idea why it is not turning out sald-laden for those of you who loved it.

The problem with many of the NY Times recipes are that half of the igrediants are not available at normal supermarkets. Fish sauce, oyster sauce no way my supermarkets stock this stuff. and I am only 30 miles from Manhattan. Please tailor your recipes to ingediants that are available.

Made exactly as written. Stupid good! My husband and I finished the whole pound of pasta in like 30 minutes. This is very unusual for us. Also RIP the pecorino I bought for this recipe. It also did not last the meal. Someone please send antacids.

This felt almost too easy and made a great dinner with shrimp and roast brussel sprouts. Thanks!

I love all things Vietnamese, but not in my pasta sorry. Love the garlic and the rest but not with pasta

Used the flat side of a meat mallet, doubled the garlic and didn’t regret it.Making this again.

Based on several comments, I tripled the sauce, including butter and parmesan. This was a mistake. There was a bit too much funk from the fish sauce and saltiness from the soy sauce (did not salt pasta water). I'm not rating this since I didn't follow the recipe. Just posting this as a warning not to go overboard with the sauce.

I really have to apologize, but this was disgusting. I followed the directions carefully and it was awful. I now have to go make something else for dinner after mincing 20 cloves of garlic...

The native (criollo) garlic one finds here in south central Mexico is in a purplish husk with small cloves. I mashed them in a molcajete and cooked them almost the full two minutes. The dish was delicious with no overpowering tastes from any of the ingredients. Didn’t have oyster sauce so subbed with Maggi. Yummy!

Someone mentioned Maggi instead of fish sauce. As a plant-based eater in NZ, I add Marmite and some capers with the garlic into the vegan butter-olive oil mixture. A lot of umami...

This was lick your plate excellent! The only thing I did differently than the recipe was use an entire bunch of scallions and mix them in to the noodles before serving.

sounds like a half a teaspoon of chili flakes would make this even better

What’s a vegetarian option for fish sauce and oyster sauce? I actually intensely dislike anything fish tasting

I'm allergic to oyster sauce... is there a substitute I can use, or should I just use extra fish sauce?