In the month of October, I went on a three week trip to Asia (China, Japan and Vietnam). While it was hectic, I was so delighted to be able to eat all the food I couldn’t find in Canada here. During this time, I made a trip to Shanghai and had some scallion oil noodles for less than 5 bucks! I found this place in a residential area which we know is where the best foods are located. It was filling but not sickly rich and so flavourful.
While Shanghai is diverse, there is cuisine known as Shanghainese cuisine. Some well known food are soup dumpling, crabs, duck blood soup, fried pork buns and of course scallion oil noodles. I didn’t have a lot of time but I got to try soup dumplings or xiaolongbao and scallion noodles.
Since I came back to Canada, I’m excited to cook some of the food I’ve had there. I’m starting off with scallion oil noodles. It’s really easy. I can make the sauce and store it for up to a month. This means I can have it whenever I want even if I’m short on time.
Scallion Oil Noodles Ingredients
Scallion oil noodles’ key ingredient is the scallion noodle sauce. It’s the star of the show. The ingredients you need is very simple. I used a vegetable oil or canola oil. You need to use an oil with a high smoke point because you cook scallions in it and extract the flavour of scallion oil. The other part of the scallion oil is a sauce you make that will be boiled with the oil after you fry up the scallions. The sauce is very simple and it includes soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar.
After the sauce is made, boil some noodles, mix with the sauce and you are ready to eat. If you want, you can add a fried egg.
How to make it
The first step to making the scallion oil noodles is prepping all your ingredients. I cut my scallions to be 1-1.5 inches. Then I heat up the oil slowly. I fry up the scallion whites first because it takes longer to cook than the greens. I only fry it until it’s slightly golden brown or else it will burn. Then the white parts are removed from the oil. The same step is repeated with the green parts of the scallion.
Once the scallions are all fried, it’s time to let the oil cool down before adding it in the sauce. I usually turn off the heat for 2-3 minutes. Once the sauce is added, turn the heat to medium low and wait until the sauce boils. Once it boils, I turn off the heat and my scallion oil sauce is ready to be used.
You can then boil some wheat noodles and toss with the sauce. I also like to fry up an egg to go with it. In addition, you can also add some veggies to the noodles as well.
Pro-tip
- ALWAYS keep the heat to medium low as it is easy to burn the scallions
- Don’t walk away from the oil when cooking the scallions. When the heat is low, it may not seem like the scallions are being cooked, however the scallion can cooked quickly in matter of moments. If you don’t pay attention, it will burn!
- If the oil temperature is too high, turn off the heat and fry the scallions with no heat.
- Before adding the sauce, turn off the heat and let the oil cool for about 2-3 minutes before pouring in the sauce. This way it won’t splatter once the sauce goes in (there is a lot of water content in sauce so it can cause the oil to splatter).
- If making a larger batch, store it in an airtight jar and store in fridge for up to 1 month.
- Use wheat noodles (not spaghetti) as it helps to cling onto the sauce. You can find these noodles usually in Asian supermarket.
- You can store the scallion oil up to a month in the fridge. If eating the scallion oil noodles later, you can heat it up slightly in the microwave and pour onto the noodles or just pour it right onto the hot noodles.
Scallion oil noodles
Ingredients
- 5 scallion
- ¼ cup neutral oil
Scallion oil sauce
- ⅓ cup soy sauce
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 2 tsp sugar
Instructions
- Wash and cut the scallion into 1½ inches. You can leave some greens to cut as toppings.
- In a pot, add oil and scallion whites, turn the heat up to medium.
- Cook the scallion whites until it's golden brown. Take out the scallion whites, turn the heat to low or off
- Cook the scallion greens in the oil. Cook until the scallion greens are slightly dark and no moisture is left in it. Scoop out the greens into a bowl.
- Let the oil cool down a bit.
- Add soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar into the oil and put the heat back to medium low.
- Once it starts boiling, keep boiling for about 20s.
- Turn off the heat and add the scallions back in. The scallion oil is done.
- Boil some water, cook your favourite wheat noodles.
- Fry up an egg (optional)
- Mix scallion oil (2-3tbsp) with the noodles and top with eggs. You can also toss in some preserved radishes for some extra crunch and flavour.
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