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Salad

Noodle Salad

A cold noodle salad with carrots, green onions, mung bean sprouts, capsicum, and a peanut dressing.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and capsicum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,751 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, peanut, soy, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • For Dressing

Also mentioned in the method: butter

Directions

Prepare the noodles

  1. Cook the noodles in boiling water with 1 tbsp oil until soft and not mushy.

  2. Drain the noodles and rinse them under cold water.

  3. Spread the noodles to dry, coating them with 1 tbsp oil.

Make the dressing

  1. Bring the chicken stock to a boil in another pan.

  2. Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the peanut butter.

  3. Add the remaining dressing ingredients: ginger, lemon juice, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and minced garlic. Mix the dressing well.

Toss and serve

  1. Place the noodles in a large bowl.

  2. Toss the noodles with green onions, mung bean sprouts, capsicum, and half of the shredded carrots.

  3. Add the dressing and roasted peanuts, and toss the salad well.

  4. Garnish with the remaining shredded carrots just before serving.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + capsicumtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,751 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Capsicum + peanuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together707 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Peanut + chickentop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Mung bean + peanuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Mung bean + capsicumtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg noodles
Form the bulk of the salad and carry the dressing, so they should be cooked until just soft.
Peanut butter
Adds richness and body to the dressing, giving it a creamy, nutty flavour.
Soy sauce
Provides salty, savoury depth that balances the sweetness and acidity of the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts through the richness of the peanut butter.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and lemon juice in the dressing.
Carrots
Contribute crisp texture and mild sweetness to the salad.

The step that matters

Cook the noodles until soft and not mushy. Noodles keep cooking as they cool and absorb dressing, so overcooked noodles turn mushy and clump. Rinsing in cold water stops the cooking, and the light oil coating helps keep the strands separate.

Flavor stand-ins for the mung bean

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, carrot, onion, capsicum, peanut, chicken, butter):

  1. Sesamebetter flavor fit
  2. Beansbetter flavor fit
  3. Peasbetter flavor fit
  4. Mung beanthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, carrot, onion, capsicum, peanut, chicken, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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