Our recipe for Garlic Noodles is modeled after the famed dish at Thanh Long and Crustacean in San Francisco. While the actual recipe is known only to their chefs, we’re rather confident that we nailed it here. Bursting with umami on multiple levels, coated in a butter-rich sauce and featuring plenty of garlic, the layers of flavor in this dish will make it hard to put your fork down between bites.

With only two steps and eight ingredients, it’s a simple dish that takes about 25 minutes to complete. It has a few unusual requirements—things that had Chris questioning himself at certain points, like rinsing the pasta after cooking, and using an absurd amount of minced garlic in the sauce. Even still, as Chris pointed out, “It’s like you do everything wrong and it comes out perfect, and it’s delicious.” Sometimes breaking the rules comes with a reward.

Asian wheat noodles vs. Italian pasta

To get closer to the original dish, we call for fresh Asian wheat noodles. These noodles are soft, sold in air-tight packaging, and have an egg yolk-yellow hue. Certain Asian noodles, like these or ramen noodles, include an alkaline ingredient that gives them their characteristic bounce and chew. Twin Marquis is a good brand; the packaging might say lo mein or chow mein noodles. You usually can find them in the refrigerated aisle of Asian markets, or order them online. If you can’t easily find these noodles, you can use dried pasta. It’s preferable to stick with thicker, straight pasta like spaghetti or linguine. Since fresh noodles and dry pasta cook at different rates, be sure to follow the package directions.

After the noodles are cooked until tender, reserve some of the starchy cooking liquid to build the sauce. If using Asian wheat noodles, rinse the excess starch off in a colander and keep them nearby.

How much garlic is too much garlic?

The next step is also the last. Melt the butter in a large skillet and add the 3 tablespoons of minced garlic. Rarely does a Milk Street recipe call for this much garlic, and you might be tempted to use less, but stay the course. Twelve cloves of minced garlic actually is perfect in the end. The flavor and smell mellow significantly after cooking.

Cooking garlic transforms the pungent compound allicin from sharp, aggressive and raw into something that’s more complex and sweet. Additionally, this recipe calls for more than half a stick of butter. Chris muses that the butter “seems to calm the pungent allicin,” preventing the other flavors in the dish from being overpowered by the large quantity of garlic. Sautéing the minced cloves in a generous amount of butter until thoroughly softened brings in plenty of garlic flavor without the abrasive sting.

What is Maggi seasoning?

Oyster sauce (a thick, sweet and savory sauce with oyster extracts) and Maggi seasoning sauce boost the umami in these noodles. Both can be found in Asian grocery stores or in the international cuisine aisles of major American supermarkets. However, I suggest popping into an Asian supermarket for a wider variety of Maggi seasonings.

Maggi seasonings are a line of umami-packed, bottled liquid seasonings from the global Maggi brand. If you’ve ever shopped in an Asian market, you’ve seen their brand name appear on everything from instant noodles to powdered seasonings. Maggi is ubiquitous in many cultural cuisines, which makes it easier to find, however it’s important to be aware that there are several different liquid bottled seasonings with different flavors and salt levels—and they’re all labeled “Maggi Seasoning.” In fact, the “same” bottle of seasoning liquid produced in a different country of origin could taste different from its twin. The flavor of the Swiss Maggi is closest to my favorite Thai soy sauce, Golden Mountain sauce, for example.

So how do you find the right one for this recipe? Our recipe uses a Maggi seasoning sauce that is similar to soy sauce or liquid aminos in saltiness and consistency. It has a light brown color which adds a subtle caramel hue to the dish. You can find this kind of Maggi Seasoning in a variety of sizes, from 3-ounce bottles to 27-ounce ones, but be aware that there is a concentrated Maggi sauce that comes in a similar looking small bottle. The concentrated seasoning has less salt and will add more color to the dish. If you end up buying this variety, it’s not “wrong,” but you might find that you need to season the finished dish with a little more salt.

If you can’t seem to find the right bottle, we suggest Bragg’s Liquid Aminos to stand in for Maggi seasoning. Should liquid aminos be eluding you too, you can opt for Golden Mountain sauce, or a low-sodium soy sauce. The flavor may vary slightly, but it will still deliver a great bowl of garlic noodles.

How to bring the sauce together

Right after adding the oyster sauce and Maggi sauce, add the salt, rinsed noodles, a splash of the pasta water and parmesan cheese, if using. Toss the ingredients thoroughly. The cheese will melt and the starches in the water will bind all of the ingredients into a light and flavorful sauce. Sprinkle chives over the top and enjoy.

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.