Houston, We Are Go For Lunch

A formula for maximizing your flavor-to-effort ratio

I wanted to share something that I’ve been making for lunch a lot lately. It’s (shockingly, I know) more a method than a recipe, but therein lies the beauty—it works with a near-infinite variety of components. It also highlights something I harp on constantly, which is how damn useful it is to have a lot of ferments sitting around. I realize that the things in the photo are not in fact on bread, but Things on Noodles deserve love too. And everything on the noodles would also be killer on toast, so there you go.

For those of you who might be new here, my goal is to teach you to cook without using recipes. So while I do sometimes write recipes (like this fantastic cornbread), I generally lay out all the steps and information you need to make something delicious while building serious skills in the kitchen. I’m not dogmatic about my dislike for measurement-based cooking, not at all. I do think that most people rely on recipes more than they need to, and that taking those training wheels off, so to speak, is the key to confidence and a level of mastery that can’t be reached solely through cookbooks.

For things that are more involved, I generally get more specific. This formula is wide open, and couldn’t be simpler. The photo above involved boiling one small bundle of udon, and then opening one can and four jars. I did run outside to grab some field garlic to mince and sprinkle on the top, but that barely constitutes a step. And it’s spring, so fresh herbs are essential and easy to get.

The important point is that five minutes of minimal effort yielded a superbly tasty and healthy lunch—one that is eminently portable, too. A lot of us could save real money and eat much healthier food if we got in the habit of assembling delicacies like this to take with us every weekday.