Noodle dishes

Noodle dishes are dishes in which noodles are the base: poured over with broth, stir-fried with meat or vegetables, or tossed with a sauce. The name of a dish usually depends not only on how it is cooked but on the kind of noodle: wheat, rice or starch.

In Japan the labelling code lists ramen alongside chūka soba, tanmen, chanpon, yakisoba and Okinawa soba, all as names for Chinese noodles made with kansui. In Vietnam the soup dish is phở. According to the country's tourism site, Nam Định in the Red River Delta is held to be its cradle and Hà Nội its spiritual home. It grew at the end of the 19th century out of xáo trâu, a soup of water buffalo and rice vermicelli: beef replaced the buffalo and round rice noodles were added. In the 1930s vendors in Hà Nội carried phở in mobile kitchens on bamboo poles, chicken phở was invented in 1939, and after 1954 southern phở got a sweeter broth and more garnishes.

The stir-fried dishes: pad thai is stir-fried rice noodles, called a national dish of Thailand by Thai embassies. Korean japchae is stir-fried starch noodles. According to Korea.net it was originally a court dish with cucumber, radish, bean sprouts and bellflower root; potato starch noodles are boiled for 8 minutes, cut into 20 cm lengths and tossed with soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and sesame seeds, then topped with thin strips of egg omelette. It is cooked for celebrations and traditional holidays.

Why it matters to you. The name of a dish does not guarantee the noodle. Ramen uses wheat, so it has gluten; phở and pad thai use rice; japchae uses starch noodles. For a gluten-free menu, check the noodle itself.