The city of Shanghai as a lot of distinctive dishes (perhaps most notably soup dumplings) but there are none which are so friendly to social isolation time -- or really any time you want to throw something together in 20 minutes and one pot for a meal -- as spring onion noodles. A quick throw-together of Asian sauces, flavored oil and noodles, they can be made entirely from pantry ingredients, modified based on what's on hand, or even easily made vegan or gluten-free.

I first had these while on a food tour of Shanghai with Lost Plate Tours, and decided I had to find out how to recreate them. I started with a recipe by Chinese Cooking Demystified and added some tweaks to make it simpler and faster.

Now, I'm going to give you the whole schmear of a recipe for how I make it at home using all the proper Chinese ingredients. However, almost every ingredient in the recipe can be substituted or omitted, so don't skip this because you don't think you can get something. Read the notes at the end on substitutions. And, because it's actually a very quick recipe, requires few measurements, and is honestly very hard to mess up in a way that's not still edible, I'm calling it a Good First Recipe and giving you very explicit instructions.

The first part of this is making the green onion oil. My recipe below makes a quart, because the oil actually keeps quite well for up to 5 months in a cool pantry, or probably longer in the fridge, and it's actually easier to make a large batch than a small one. Plus, once you taste the oil, you'll want to use it on other dishes like steamed fish.

green onion oil

• 1 quart vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
• 3-5 bunches scallions, 1/2 to 3/4 pound

Wash the scallions and dry them very well. Cut off the roots and any ragged ends, and then cut apart the green and white parts. Cut the green parts into 2" pieces. Split the white parts in half lengthwise, or in quarters if they're thick. Then cut those into 2" pieces.

Put all the onion pieces into the oil. Heat it until the onions start sizzling, and then leave it over medium heat until all the onion pieces turn brown and the sizzling decreases. Set aside to cool.

Pour oil and burnt onion pieces into a glass jar and store in a cool cupboard or the fridge for up to 5 months. If you are concerned about food safety, use the fridge.

Once you have your oil, you can make the noodles any time you like.

spring onion noodles

For two diners, scale up as needed. Note that almost every ingredient below can be substituted.

• 12oz Shanghai-style wheat noodles
• 2 Tbs tiny dried shrimp
• 2 Tbs Shaoxing Wine
• 2 Tbs light soy sauce
• 1 Tbs dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 4 Tbs scallion oil (recipe below)
• Fried onions from the scallion oil, about 2 Tbs
• Fresh green onions, sliced thin, about 1/2 cup
• Salt & Water
• Equipment: large (4qt+) pot, steamer of some kind that fits it

Fill the pot with water, salt it, and set it to boil. Prepare two small cups or bowls that will fit together in the steamer. In one, put the dried shrimp, Shaoxing wine, and 2 Tbs water. In the other put the light and dark soy sauce and sugar. Put the steamer over the pot, and steam for 10 minutes.

Remove the steamer from the pot (but keep it on heat). Strain the dried shrimp, letting the shrimpy wine liquid drain into the soy sauce mixture. Mix that, making sure no sugar granules remain. Mince up the dried shrimp and set them aside.

Boil the noodles until cooked, 2-4 minutes depending on variety. Quickly, drain the noodles, and then divide them between two large bowls. Drizzle 2 Tbs scallion oil on each. On top of the noodles, put half the fresh green onions, half the minced shrimp, and a small pile of fried green onions. Drizzle half the sauce (2-3 Tbs) on each bowl.

Hand each bowl to your two diners, allowing them to mix the noodles themselves.

substitutions

Noodles: Shanghai noodles are a white, round, wheat noodle slightly narrower than spaghetti. You can replace them in this recipe with almost any relatively thin, eggless Asian wheat noodle, such as the "dried udon" available at many markets (what I used in the photo at the top), or even Korean knife-cut noodles. You can even use angel hair pasta, although it won't absorb the sauce as well. For a gluten-free option, use glass (mung bean) noodles.

Dried Shrimp: if you can't get these from an Asian or Mexican market, or if you want to make this recipe vegan, just omit them. If not using them, then omit the 2 Tbs water from the sauce, and mix all sauce ingredients together in one bowl before steaming. In this version, you could also boil the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan instead of steaming.

Shaoxing Wine: in many/most places in the US, you either can't find this or can only find the salted "cooking" version (check the label for salt), which would make this recipe too salty. If you can't get the good stuff, use a medium or dry sherry instead.

Light Soy Sauce: any lighter variety of soy sauce would work, including Tamari. I use Pearl River Bridge Light Soy Sauce.

Dark Soy Sauce: a sweeter, darker soy sauce with a molasses flavor. If you can't get this, then replace all the soy sauce with a richer, darker regular soy sauce like Kikoman, and double the amount of sugar.

If you want to make this entirely from pantry ingredients, the fresh green onions are optional.

I like Japanese curry. I mean, who doesn't? Even Portland has its own Japanese curry house. But preparing Japanese curry (kare) at home usually means using these sort of instant curry blocks:

Those are fine, and I've used them lots of times, but I generally don't like to think a lot about what's actually in them. I wanted to make a from-scratch curry, so I checked out Pailin's recipe, which looked great except it depended heavily on browned beef and beef stock. So I checked out Daniel Gritzer's recipe, but his was a bit complicated.

So I set about synthesizing and simplifying both recipes into a vegetarian Japanese curry that would work for me. This was easier than I thought, and worked well the first time, so I share the recipe below. This curry is definitely doable on a weeknight, but it's a little high-cleanup, involving at least a pot, a pan, and a rice cooker. It makes good leftovers.

One thing you'll need to pick out on your own is the "crispy thing" to go on top of the curry. We did breaded (frozen) shrimp, but a croquette of some kind would also work, as would panko-breaded fried tofu, tonkatsu or boneless fried chicken. It's optional, of course, but having the contrast to something crispy and chewy definitely improves the curry a lot.

Japanese "winter curry"

Rice:

2 cups Japanese Rice
Water

Instant Dashi Stock:

1 small bullion cube or other instant stock
2 large squares konbu, maybe 4"x4" each

Vegetables:

2-3 Tbs vegetable oil
1 onion, diced small
2-3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 winter squash, about 1 1/2 lbs, peeled, seeded and diced
2-3 waxy potatoes, diced
1 apple, peeled and grated (like on a box grater)
8 oz small mushrooms, such as shimeji, nameko, or oyster, OR 1 cup frozen peas

Curry Paste:

5 Tbs butter
5 Tbs flour
1 clove minced garlic
1-2" piece ginger, peeled and minced fine, about 2 Tbs
2 Tbs mild yellow curry powder

Wash and drain the rice, reserving the rice washing water full of starch. Put this water in a small pot or microwavable bowl, and add additional water to make 1 quart. Heat to boiling. Add the konbu and instant stock; cover and let sit while you prepare other things like dicing all those vegetables.

Do whatever prep you need to do for the Crispy Thing, such as heating the oven.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large soup pot. Add the onion and fry until translucent. Add the squash and fry until it sweats. Add the carrots and potatoes, and fry until they sweat. Add the grated apple, and the stock, taking the konbu out. Bring to a low simmer, then cover and let cook for another 12 to 16 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Start cooking your rice concurrently with the other cookery, hopefully in a rice cooker. It's likely to be done before the other food is, which is fine, just fluff it, and set aside, covered, to keep warm.

While the veggies are simmering, make the curry paste, which starts with a dark brown roux. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. When the foaming starts to subside, add the flour and begin stirring. You'll keep stirring it for what feels like forever but is really only about 7 minutes, at which point it'll start darkening. After that, it should take only another 3-4 minutes to darken to a milk chocolate or peanut butter color. At that point, turn off the heat, then quickly stir in the curry powder, garlic and ginger, which will foam a lot, and you will need to keep stirring until the paste cools, or they will burn.

If the simmering veggies are done, then stir in the mushrooms or peas, and the curry paste. Let simmer & thicken a little more, then take off heat and cover, letting it sit for at least 5 minutes.

While the curry is sitting, you can finish preparing your Crispy thing.

Serve in wide flat bowls, with rice on one side, curry on the other, and the Crispy Thing on top. Goes well with a yeasty lager or green tea.

Notes:

This recipe could easily be made vegan by swapping the butter for vegetable oil. Just toast the roux a little darker and nobody will be able to tell the difference.

For curry powder, you want a mild powder. I used Penzey's "sweet curry", which I'd recommend, but the traditional powder is S&B Oriental Curry Powder. Or you can make your own curry powder from spices and adjust it to your liking, as described in Gritzner's recipe.

This is a "winter" curry because it includes all vegetables that are available in winter. In the spring or summer, you'd use a different assortment of vegetables appropriate to the season.