You need ginger scallion sauce on your noodles, in your fridge, and in your life. For real.” That’s David Chang’s advice in the Momofuku cookbook, so who am I to argue? I needed a noodle fix, and the recipe didn’t involve heating up the kitchen to the point where it was uninhabitable, so it was time to make dinner.
To make the sauce, I thinly sliced about 2 bunches of scallions, enough to make two and a half cups. I chopped some peeled fresh ginger and minced it in a Cuisinart mini-prep until I had a half cup. I measured out a quarter cup of grapeseed oil, one and a half teaspoons of light soy sauce, three quarters of a teaspoon of xiaoxing wine (you can substitute sherry vinegar), and three quarters of a teaspoon of kosher salt.
I mixed everything together and let it sit for twenty minutes. That’s the entirety of the sauce preparation.
While the sauce sat, I made some quick cucumber pickles (described here), sliced the remaining slab of char sui pork I had stashed in the Belm Utility Research Kitchen Deep Storage Facility, and brought a pot of salted water to the boil.
Having learned my lesson in the great #noodlefail incident, I used fresh prepared noodles from my local Korean market.
I boiled a pound of noodles for about five minutes, drained them, and then tossed them with about a cup of the ginger scallion sauce.
While the noodles boiled, I also heated up the pork slices.
For the final assembly I topped the noodles and sauce with a splash of soy sauce, the pork, and the pickle slices.
I’m sure I could get more authentic noodles from a Korean street vendor, but until I make the trip to Seoul, my version will be a more than acceptable substitute. The sauce alone is an ingredient worth having around all the time. I’ll leave the parting thought to Chang:
Ginger scallion sauce is one of the greatest sauces or condiments ever. Ever. … If you have ginger scallion sauce in the fridge, you will never go hungry: stir 6 tablespoons into a bowl of hot noodles and you’re in business. Or serve over a bowl of rice topped with a fried egg. Or with grilled meat or any kind of seafood. Or almost anything.
And now I have a whole list of quick recipes I can bang out on a hot summer night. Ginger scallion sauce FTW!