We aren’t really sure about the origins of drunken noodles. Supposedly, this recipe came about when a man came back home late at night after drinking with his friends. However, he was so hungry that he wasn’t able to go to bed without eating something first, but he didn’t want to wake his wife up to cook for him, or he may not have had one.
So he decided to cook for himself while he was still drunk and had a limited variety of ingredients to use in his house, but the food that he ended up making turned out to be tasty and became very popular when it was discovered by others later.
This recipe is expected to be spicy by its nature because the drunken man didn’t bother measuring and wasn’t aware of what he had prepared and mixed. Although we don’t know if this story is true or not, alcohol or being drunk isn’t required to make this recipe and enjoy it! Haha~
A variety of noodles, meat, and vegetables can be used in this recipe, and we picked several of them for today. Are you ready to try it? ^^
Ingredients
½ cup of squid rings
5-6 shrimps
3.5 oz (100 g) of rice noodles
1-2 mini sweet yellow or red peppers
1 tbsp of smashed garlic
2 tbsp of cooking oil
1-2 tbsp of fish/soy sauce
1 tsp of black soy sauce
20 holy basil leaves (if not sweet basil probably can be substituted)
½ tsp of sugar
A small amount of water
(Optional) 1/2-2 tsp of chili garlic sauce or 3-4 chilli pepers
(Optional) Fresh green peppercorns
(Optional) Vegetables: carrots, green beans, snow peas, mushrooms (shiitake, button, winter, or golden needle mushrooms), collard greens, broccoli or baby corn.
We used button mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, collard greens, and carrots.
Directions
- In a pan or wok over medium-high heat, pour in cooking oil
- When the oil becomes hot, add garlic and chili garlic sauce, then mix them well
- Add squid and shrimp
- When they are half cooked, add your choice of vegetables and peppercorns
- Add noodles and black soy sauce (water can be added if the noodles are a little dry)
- Season with fish/soy sauce and sugar
- Remove from heat, add basil and mix the ingredients well
- It is ready to serve!
Note
Some vegetables may need to be added first before others because of requiring a longer cooking time. You can decide on when to put each vegetable in depending on your choices.
A large variety of noodles can be used in this recipe, such as instant noodles, spaghetti, or frozen noodles (which is what we used for this). We had to let ours thaw out overnight to make sure they peeled apart properly.
