Why it works: Sesame and honey work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 527 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: wheat, soy, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Boil pasta, drain, and run cold water over it while in colander to cool.
Lightly toss the noodles with some sesame oil to prevent sticking.
Make the sauce
Mix the sesame paste, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, hot chili oil, scallions, and sesame seeds in a blender, adding the remaining sesame oil.
The sauce should be somewhat thick but runny enough to coat the noodles; add cold water if it is too thick.
Serve
Pour the sauce over the noodles and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.
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.
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Sesame + honeytop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together527 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).
-
Sesame + saucetop 9% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together921 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Sauce + honeytop 19% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together638 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Noodles
- Provide the starchy base that holds the sauce and gives the dish its chewy bite.
- Sesame paste (tehini)
- Gives the sauce its thick body, nutty flavour and creamy coating texture.
- Soy sauce
- Adds salty, savoury depth that balances the sweetness and richness of the sauce.
- Honey
- Adds sweetness that rounds out the salty soy and bitter sesame flavours.
- Sesame oil
- Adds fat and aroma, and lightly coats the noodles so they do not stick together.
The step that matters
Thinning the sauce with cold water. Sesame paste thickens quickly and can become pasty and clumpy. Adding cold water a little at a time loosens it so it coats the noodles evenly without turning gluey.
“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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