One night when I was a kid, I had a neighborhood friend over for dinner. We were ten years old at the time, and he sat totally still with his hands in his lap for the whole meal, politely declining all the dishes my mom offered him. At the end of the meal, after much insistence from my mom, who couldn’t stand to send him home on an empty stomach, he quietly requested a bowl of buttered noodles. My mom had never heard of such a dish. I hadn’t either. Her quick-fix pasta was usually a mound of massively overcooked noodles tossed with whatever Chinese condiments we had in the fridge, usually a mash-up of oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and sesame oil. It was delicious and definitely not nutritious. My sister and I loved it. So these buttery noodles, coated in savory oyster sauce and toasty sesame oil, are dedicated to that friend, to all the kids who don’t want to eat anything from this book, and to all the parents (like us) who are too tired to think of anything else.
Excerpted from the book “Salt Sugar MSG” Copyright © 2025 by Calvin Eng and Phoebe Melnick. Photographs copyright © 2025 by Alex Lau. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group. Reprinted by permission.
Directions
- Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta, stir well, and cook according to the package directions. Once the noodles are fully cooked (not al dente), scoop out and reserve ¼ cup of the pasta water, then drain the pasta in a colander and return it to the pot.
- Off the heat, add the butter and pasta water to the pasta and toss the mixture constantly and confidently until the sauce is emulsified and clings to the noodles (and doesn’t just melt to the bottom). If the sauce is too thin, put the pot over medium heat and toss the buttery pasta to reduce some of the liquid. Add the oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and sesame oil and toss until a creamy sauce forms. Serve immediately.