Pasta & Noodles

An Italian dish that's great with brunch, or as a light lunch or appetizer on its own.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

An Asian take on pasta salad. Soba, or Japanese buckwheat noodles, have a brown-gray color and nutty flavor.

Somen Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 hr In a six-part series in 1975, correspondent Elizabeth Andoh taught us about the reverent seasonality of Japanese cuisine. It was with this summer recipe that many of us learned that noodles as well as rice are eaten in Japan. The concept of icy-cold noodles took only one taste to grasp: Andoh's recipe for somen is one of the lightest and most refreshing pasta preparations we've ever had.

Active time: 1 3/4 hr Start to finish: 2 1/2 hr

This chilled noodle salad from Zygot Bookworks & Cafe is loaded with crisp vegetables.

Pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup, is traditionally made with long-cooked beef stock. Our quick version calls for deli sliced beef and canned beef broth instead.<

This lemony pasta dish is great with sesame breadsticks and a salad of sliced tomatoes and Vidalia onions in a red-wine vinaigrette. End with hazelnut cookies and a mixed-melon compote splashed with Champagne.

To form the noodle cakes, measure them out by taking a few strands of noodles and loosely squiggling them into a tablespoon. Once you get the hang of the amount needed, you can pretty much eyeball it.

Chinese egg noodles are at Asian markets and in the Asian foods section of the supermarket.

(Hasidic Caramelized Noodle Pudding) The Chmielnicki massacres in Poland in 1648, the apostasy of the false messiah Shabbetai Tzvi in 1666, the subsequent partition of Poland, and other problems shook the Jewish communities of eastern Europe. Some Jews found an answer in the freedom offered by the Enlightenment (Haskala in Yiddish). Others turned to Kabbalistic healers and miracle workers. One of these holy men was Israel ben Eliezer, commonly called the Ba'al Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name). By the time of his death in 1760, he had created a full-fledged religious movement known as Hasidism and, within a generation, the bulk of the Jews in central Poland, Galicia, and the Ukraine were Hasidim. Beginning in the late 1700s, groups of Hasidim began moving to the Holy Land in order to live a more fully religious life. They brought with them the traditions of eastern Europe, including their manner of dress and foods. It was among the Hasidim of Jerusalem that this distinctive noodle kugel, which features a tantalizing contrast of pepper and caramelized sugar, was popularized.

In its traditional form, this classic Lao soup is made with noodles rolled out and cut to order for each bowl. It is still excellent made with dried rice noodles. You can substitute fish, chicken, or pork for the beef, but rice noodles are an essential ingredient. The Lao like a considerable amount of lime juice in their food—here a range is given so that you can flavor the soup to your taste.

We used a Microplane rasp (available at cookware shops) to grate the cheese in this recipe. You can use a box grater instead, but the same amount of cheese (1 ounce) will yield less volume. Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

We love this dish on its own, but a sprinkling of Parmigiano Reggiano and fresh basil can be a nice addition. If you can get fresh ricotta, by all means use it here.