The Noodle Shop Cookbook [Hardcover]

Jacki Passmore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 1994

When Americans think of noodles, it's not just about Italy anymore -- with Asian noodle shops more popular than ever,The Noodle Shop Cookbook makes it easy to enjoy the wide variety of Asian noodle dishes. Introductory chapters cover all the basics: tips for buying and cooking, the types of noodles available like soba, somen, or udon, recipes for numerous stocks and noodle broths, and instructions on how to prepare homemade noodles. There's even a chapter of recipes for vegetarian dishes and a special chapter featuring the author's own personal creations. Here cooks will find delicious Chiu Cou Noodles in Sesame Sauce, Spicy Singapore Noodles, Teriyaki Soba, and Chicken Noodles in Coconut Soup. The Noodle Shop Cookbook makes this dietary mainstay of Asia easy, delicious and fun to eat.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Passmore (Asia the Beautiful Cookbook) has got a good idea: to tap the popularity of Asian noodle shops and bring those bottomless meal-in-a-bowls into American kitchens. She explains how to make the noodles themselves (with a pasta machine, or by hand), then moves on to consider stocks and specialties country by country. A glossary smoothes the way for the uncertain, and Passmore also offers general preparation instructions (e.g., on how to store noodles). Sidebars adjacent to recipes give additional background, tell stories and pay homage to the quirks of exotic ingredients. Some of the noodle dishes are vegetarian, but not all; some are spicy, others mild; some served hot, and others chilled. In addition to suggesting regional and authentic mainstays, the writer offers her own experiments in a concluding chapter, "Noodles My Way," that mixes different ethnic ingredients in a multicultural celebration. So many cookbooks repeat each other that it's especially refreshing to find one like this that makes headway with a genre that is healthful, varied, toothsome and contemporary.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Passmore is the author of several books on Asian cooking; this one grew out of the "noodle withdrawal" she suffered upon leaving Hong Kong for the United States. Noodle shops are beginning to appear in many American cities, and for their increasing number of aficionados, here are many of their traditional specialties. Recipes are arranged by country, along with a chapter of vegetarian dishes and another of the author's own favorite concoctions. For most collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 246 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 18, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0025947052
• ISBN-13: 978-0025947054
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 8.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #803,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars delicious, authentic, July 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Noodle Shop Cookbook (Paperback)

This book is a household standby in the households of at least two third-generation Asian-Americans I know. The recipes are low-fat, flavorful, and authentic, somehow without being too exotic for most American palates. They're generally easy enough for the novice cook, and detailed sidebars tell you how to slice meat, chop onions, etc. "the Asian way". Compared to ethnic cookbooks, which have me scurrying around the city shelling out way too much money on frivolities like sundried tomatoes, the ingredients needed by this book are extremely reasonably priced (as long as you live somewhere on the American coastline).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rice noodles, soba, lo mein, and more, March 25, 2008

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Noodle Shop Cookbook (Hardcover)

It is kind of a cliche, but when some Japanese businessmen dream of retiring, they dream of opening a little soba noodle shop, a place with a cypress wood counter, beautiful ceramic bowls filled with gray or white noodles decorated with fishcakes and tempura and a grateful set of regulars, something like Cheers, but with noodles. In fact, someone I know in Tokyo confessed just such a pleasant vision to me one day over a glass of Kirin at just such a place.

Noodles are more popular in Asia than even in the Western world; after all, Marco Polo brought the secret of long strands of dough back with him from his trip to Cathay. We think of Asians eating bowls of rice, but the default meal in many countries is a bowl of noodles swimming in broth.

And the noodles aren't just wheat based; they can be strands of rice, mung beans or even "konnyaku" or shiritaki noodles, made from a gelatinous sort of tuber starch. So some of these noodles are low in carbohydrates--a gift to the dieter, and some are not wheat-based, a gift to the gluten-sensitive folks.

This book is quite complete, going country by country. If you like wide Thai rice noodles such as Pad Thai, that's here. If you like delicate gray soba chilled, that's also here. Recipes are from countries as diverse as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam. The Phillipines (perhaps not strictly Asia--Oceania) are not included, which I thought was a shame, but that's a quibble. There are quite a few recipes I've never seen that looked great--the Indonesian noodles use some exotic sauces that are available fairly widely these days.

What's my favorite? Chilled Japanese soba with wasabi or chilled hayashi (white thin noodles) with a strong broth for dipping. Spend an August in Japan and you will come to appreciate cold noodles. This is a very pretty book and one that can give the adventuresome cook easy recipes to make inexpensive but delicious quick meals.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Some big mistakes, September 4, 2011

By 

Xiao (usa) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Noodle Shop Cookbook (Hardcover)

While I haven't had the chance to take in much of this book already I've seen what can only be described in any serious kitchen as utter blasphemy. What do I mean ?

1) author fails to understand the difference b/t tonkotsu - a style of ramen and tonkatsu - a popular dish whose mainstay is breaded and fried pork and which is also a type of sauce. If fact she refers to the ramen - whose largely pork bone based broth turns from darker black to brown by long hours of cooking in which the fat is emulsified into the broth - as "tonkatsu" ramen.

2) what is her method to achieve such a delicious thick intense broth for "tonkatsu" ramen? add flour. ouch !!! while flour may achieve the look, by turning any dark rich meat broth into a milky brown color, it does not by any means achieve the actual taste and is not something that any respectable student of ramen would consider doing, ever. you might as well add milk and pour it over cereal if you're going down that road.

This error on both the author and any editor involved is a pretty glowering obstruction to my further enjoyment of any other recipes. I will continue to survey this little book but with much more reserve. You have been warned.