Pasta & Noodles

(Tony Tan's Laksa Lemak)

Bangkok-style noodles with shrimp, chicken and Thai chilies from Arun's in Chicago.

The hearty sauce is also great over couscous.

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

Bibim Gooksu Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from restaurateur Jenny Kwak's book, Dok Suni: Recipes from My Mother's Korean Kitchen. Kwak also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Kwak and Korean cuisine, click here. This noodle dish is very gratifying on hot summer days when you want to eat something light, healthy, and refreshingly cold. The crisp, clean texture of the cucumber combined with the spiciness from kimchi, the tang from the rice vinegar and a subtle sweetness from the sugar makes the dish so good. The noodles are served over a bed of ice, then topped with this spicy salad-like mixture.

Inspired by Vietnamese cuisine, this combination is also satisfying on its own as a meatless lunch.

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.

Fideua con Láminas de Sepia Salteadas Fideos are a vermicelli-style noodle, sold in nests, that comes in several thicknesses. For this delicate dish, it's important to use the thinnest fideos possible, cabello de ángel (angel hair). Cuttlefish (sepia), a marine cephalopod of the same family as octopus and squid, is widely available throughout northern Spain; fresh squid is much easier to get in this country, however.

Light, delicate, and crisp, rice-stick noodles come packaged in different sizes. However, 1 package, no matter how small, will be plenty for this recipe. If you'd like to make larger crisps for dramatic presentation, simply pull each noodle mound into a wider tangle, then fry crisps 1 at a time. This recipe is an accompaniment for pineapple ice cream. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

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