Genius Recipes
One-Ingredient Noodles as Easy as Scrambled Eggs
This week’s Genius Recipe is a Passover tradition from the grandmother Julia Turshen never met.
Every week in Genius Recipes—often with your help!—Food52 Founding Editor and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.
Until I tried this recipe, I would not have thought homemade noodles would be on my agenda this week, this year, or at least until my 2-year-old has completed her mission to relocate every object in our home.
Even when I saw that the noodles, in this case, were simply beaten eggs, swirled in a pan to make thin, tender omelettes you can stack and slice like basil leaves, I still doubted I’d have the patience. It looked like the midpoint between crepes and omelettes, two dishes that stress skill and execution—why wouldn’t these be the same?
But I was entirely wrong, and I should have realized as much, knowing that this recipe comes from Julia Turshen, champion of approachable, feel-good cooking. Her new cookbook, Simply Julia, takes doability and joy to heart perhaps more than any she’s done before.
This recipe is her recreation of the egg noodles her maternal grandmother made for Passover—all beaten egg, made without flour to align with the abstention from leavened foods for the holiday—passed down through the stories of her mom and aunts, since her grandmother passed away long before Julia was born. When Julia’s wife Grace was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and they were searching for comforting recipes that were low in carbohydrates, Julia remembered the noodles.
What makes them so forgiving, when they look so precise? You can be inexact with the eggs you slosh into the pan—any that don’t start setting immediately are poured back into the bowl. You also don’t need to flip—just let them set, nudge your omelette onto a plate, repeat. They’re sturdy enough to survive tumbling to the plate gracelessly (in fact, I know no other way). And it doesn’t matter if you end up with four or five or six, or if some tear or come out amoeba-like—all will be noodles in the end.
These noodles are such a simple and natural expression of the egg, and I’ve learned they exist all over the world. I’ve most recently seen them in the xián dòu ji āng (Savory Soy Milk) and sān xiān xiǎo hún tun (Thrice-Fresh Small Wontons) in Betty Liu’s new cookbook My Shanghai and the Nyonya-Style Singapore Noodles and Peppery Vegetarian Rice in Grace Young’s classic Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge. (Please share in the comments where you’ve seen them, too.)
In Julia’s favorite version, they’re twirling in golden chicken broth, made rich with onion skins and whichever chicken parts you have on hand (or don’t—you can just buy a pound of wings). In Simply Julia, she suggests riffs like a phở-inspired broth, poaching in chicken, melting in greens. I’ve hid random scraggles of herbs in the beaten eggs, and used them to stretch leftovers into a saucy plate of pasta that suddenly feels complete.
And I’ve made them with a rascally toddler at my side, and watched as she wrapped them around her tiny fingers, popping them into her mouth one by one. One day we’ll make noodles in more complicated forms together, but on any other, nothing will stop us from making these.
| 9 | cups [2 liters] water |
| 1 | large yellow onion, roughly chopped (no need to peel) |
| 1 | pound [453 g] chicken backs, bones, and/or wings |
| 1 | teaspoon freshly ground black pepper |
| Kosher salt |
| 9 | cups [2 liters] water |
| 1 | large yellow onion, roughly chopped (no need to peel) |
| 1 | pound [453 g] chicken backs, bones, and/or wings |
| 1 | teaspoon freshly ground black pepper |
| Kosher salt |
| 4 | large eggs |
| 1/2 | teaspoon salt |
| Cooking spray (Julia's preference is olive oil spray, and I've used a few drops of oil wiped around the pan with a clean kitchen towel in a pinch) |
| 4 | large eggs |
| 1/2 | teaspoon salt |
| Cooking spray (Julia's preference is olive oil spray, and I've used a few drops of oil wiped around the pan with a clean kitchen towel in a pinch) |
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Written by: Kristen Miglore
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23 Comments
Actually, if you want a GOLDEN broth, be sure to include the onion peels. They are a natural dye and also impart an elusive earthy taste. I learned that trick from my Mother-in-Laws Mom, who was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant. She considered the peels to be an absolutely essential part of the recipe.
For 6 servings noodles:
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups water
6 Tablespoons Potatoe Starch
1 teaspoons kosher salt
Pinch black pepper
3 teaspoons oil + oil as needed for skillet
In a medium bowl mix thoroughly (I use hand beater) 3 eggs, 6 Tb potato starch, water, salt, pepper and oil. Mixture SHOULD LOOK THICK & CREAMY (doesn’t really you need to keep stirring potatoe starch that settles on bottom of bowl)
Heat your smallest fry pan - spray with pam , then sprinklea few drops of oil into pan- with a paper towelgrease pan with oil-( heat pan til drops of water dance in pan. Measure about 1/4 cup of batter into skillet & tilt pan to spread evenly on surface. When batter looks dry -flip over to cook other side. Try to regulate heat & time of frying so only cooks to light gold
Invert skillet above a plate or onto wax paper- let cool- when cool roll up & cut crosswise
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