Foodie Friday: Asian Noodles with Lime Shrimp
UPDATE: We made this again on Sunday with more shrimp and added cucumber, which elevated the freshness of the dish. A few tablespoons of full leaf cilantro, an extra squeeze of lime juice, and a dash of cayenne hot sauce brightened the dish.
During my final semester of college, I was considering a career change before my journalism career even started. I explored civil engineering, truck driving school, culinary arts and others avenues as possibilities.
While I didn’t make a career change then, my interest in culinary arts has remained. Having spent several years workings nights and weekends in sports journalism, I knew a career in the kitchen (ie. more nights and weekends) wasn’t the professional path I wanted to take.
Instead, I’m a home chef. I enjoy cooking shows (America’s Test Kitchen is my favorite), trying new recipes (like the one below), and perfecting those recipes. Once or twice a month, I’ll post about a recipe – either new or recently perfected – in this space.
To kickoff Foodie Fridays, I recently made an Asian noodle dish with lime shrimp. Take a look.
Asian Noodles with Lime Shrimp
I didn’t have a recipe from which to work but pulled together a couple different recipes to make this dish.
In this case, I picked up a package of Korean noodles from Jay’s International Food on South Grand in St. Louis. That’s a great shop, by the way. I visited Jay’s to pick up eel sauce for the sushi we rolled on Christmas Day. The noodles caught my eye because of the fresh dish pictured on the package with cucumber, cilantro and shredded pork or chicken over the noodles.
Unfortunately, the directions on the packaging of the noodles were in Korean. I was planning to boil the noodles for 8-10 minutes. Luckily, my brilliant wife took a picture of the directions, and Google translated for us. The directions called for three minutes, followed by a rinse in cold water. Disaster averted!
As the noodles boiled, I had a pan heating up with olive oil and a touch of butter for the shrimp. This was pre-cooked medium shrimp, so it only needed heated up (for this dish, I should have removed the tails before cooking). In the last 30 seconds of heating up, I added lime zest and lime juice to the shrimp. Side note: This is a family favorite courtesy of our pastor, who prepared it for Molly and me a few years ago as I recovered from Achille’s surgery. This shrimp is great on its own, for shrimp tacos, or served over noodles.
To build the Asian noodle dish:
The bowl started with a miso soup base (I followed the directions on the miso paste container and added scallions and sliced mushrooms to the boiling water).
Add the cold noodles to the bowl.
Top with the shrimp, lots of cilantro and more sliced mushrooms and green onion.
Our cucumber had gone bad so we left it out, but it would add to the freshness. Crushed peanuts would be a nice addition as well.
Verdict
W and O devoured this one. O is our picky eater, but he loves the lime shrimp. W loves Ramen, and this had an elevated Ramen feel to it.
We will prepare this again, making sure to have cucumber and more shrimp next time.