While I love udon noodles and lo mein like any other red-blooded American, I usually don’t make it at home because I know I probably won’t be able to make it like they can.
Nonetheless, I constantly wonder why I can’t just make some Asian noodles for dinner with the spaghetti noodles I have in the cabinet. Is that a completely horrible cultural misstep? Whats the difference? They’re all just…super thin, stick-like dough, right?
PS: If someone could post their favorite lo mein/udon noodle recipes while we’re discussing this, that’d be lovely.
pasta is essentially italian and contains eggs whilst udon and asian noodles do not. pasta comes in all different shapes and sizes. noodles are the long things. sure you can make asian with spagethetti noodles. google a recipe,heaps of them.
Pasta is (are?) noodles. There are noodles that wouldn’t usually be considered pasta, but neither has so precise a definition that you can clearly distinquish them though pasta usually are considered egg noodles. I know Italians who consider ‘noodle’ to simply be the English word for ‘pasta’. However, pasta is generally considered the many forms of noodles made with eggs in the traditional Italian forms that are widely known such as spaghetti, rotini, shells, etc.
Pasta: Italian, does not contain eggs except when it specifically does. Zillion shapes. Usually made of hard (durum) wheat.
Noodles: flat thin ribbons, usually contains eggs, unless they are Asian.
Asian “noodles” (in quotes because obviously noodle is not the native name): often made of something other than wheat (buckwheat, rice), do not contain eggs, are typically long but not flat.
They’re synonyms, though usually used in different contexts. One other difference of usage is that “pasta” is a substance noun, while “noodle” is a count noun: A plate of pasta is the same as a plate of noodles, but a single noodle doesn’t really have a pasta equivalent, beyond the clumsy “piece of pasta”.
This is the best so far. Pasta doesn’t usually contain eggs; noodles usually do (though there are “eggless” noodles these day, usually with egg whites only). Asian noodles are more often made of grains other than wheat (rice is common, for obvious reasons) and don’t have the same variety of shape as pasta.
Pasta noodles are made from durum wheat flour; Asian noodles, when made from wheat, are made from common wheat flour. They are more commonly made from a different ingredient such as rice, however.
from my experience. in china ‘noodles’ are ròu tāng miàn in a type of hotpot soup dish.* mian meaning noodles*.
the meat is questionable as it could be anything. the art of making the noodles is amazing as they toss them into the air akin to a pizza master doing his dough.
the comment was not meant be offensive, but here they will just toss about anything into the mix. this depends on the province you’re in too.oodles.
i guess in a western modernized nation asking ‘what meat is that’ is acceptable. here they can’t define or express.
I’ve bought fresh spaghetti-like noodles and dried egg noodles, some shaped like thin fettucine, some gathered into little nests, some very thin and delicate. I’ve seen lots of thicknesses of ffesh and dried egg noodles in HMart, but i don’t know what to do with most of them!
