I had never been a big fan of Singapore noodles. Every version of this Chinese-American was bland, gritty and boring. Then, I tried the version at RuYi, a surprisingly good restaurant in the Potawatomi casino, and found it better than I had remembered. And more recently, I tried the version at Kim’s Thai to Go, my favorite Thai place located in Pacific Produce on the south side of Milwaukee, and that version was a revelation. It was bright with curry and heavily seasoned; a cross between Chinese noodle stir fry and Indian curry. 

So when I had a couple pork chops to use up before they expired, I decided to give Singapore noodles a shot myself. I cobbled together a few recipes around the internet, and followed Cook’s Illustrated’s general method. The verdict: a definite make again recipe.

I don’t have a proper wok, mostly because I don’t have a proper gas stove to use it with, so I followed CI’s usual method of cooking stir fries in stages. Unless you have a massively powerful stove and wok, this is probably your best bet as well. 

The curry powder you use is important, since it’s the predominant flavoring. I used a Penzey’s blend called Maharajah curry because it was something I had around, though that blend contains superfluous saffron. Their generic sweet curry powder would be fine, though I would not recommend using a generic, low quality supermarket curry blend. That’s how your noodles could end up tasting like chalk. You can use specific blends of curry like garam masala, but you’ll get a slightly different flavor than what you might be used to from your Chinese takeout place. If you do that, add some extra tumeric with your spices.

Feel free to use whatever veggies you like in this, or whatever you need to use from your fridge. Next time, I’ll probably increase the amount of veggies and use snow peas or bean sprouts. Don’t skip the lime juice for sprinkling, the acid helps punch up the flavor.

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