It's not. First of his rankings I vehemently disagree with.I was ready to die on the "this is a top 20 noodle dish" hill. And every time I try to bougie it up, I regret it.#19 Tuna noodle casserole
Origin: The culinary hotbeds of America, Australia and Finland
Tuna casserole is a mid-century hotdish made with egg noodles, canned tuna and a cream sauce. Most recipes use canned soup for the sauce so your can opener is the most important kitchen gadget. A crispy topping of bread crumbs, potato chips or corn flakes is essential and you can stir in some cheese if that’s the way you roll.
This isn’t a nostalgia ranking–I have no personal connection with the dish. It’s not something my mom cooked because my dad didn’t like tuna. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen it on a restaurant menu either. Tuna casserole is home cooked comfort food all the way. It’s about as old school American as you can get. I love it unironically. All the elements work in harmony and the creamy fishiness that takes me back to a place that I never knew.
I get we have different tastes. This is the first one I have an aversion to. I'd just go hungry instead. I love a tuna sandwich. Tuna on a salad is fine. I've made some snobby comments but just in fun. I've recently been told I eat like a toddler. Some snob. Just no tuna casserole for me, thanks. More for you!It's not. First of his rankings I vehemently disagree with.I was ready to die on the "this is a top 20 noodle dish" hill. And every time I try to bougie it up, I regret it.#19 Tuna noodle casserole
Origin: The culinary hotbeds of America, Australia and Finland
Tuna casserole is a mid-century hotdish made with egg noodles, canned tuna and a cream sauce. Most recipes use canned soup for the sauce so your can opener is the most important kitchen gadget. A crispy topping of bread crumbs, potato chips or corn flakes is essential and you can stir in some cheese if that’s the way you roll.
This isn’t a nostalgia ranking–I have no personal connection with the dish. It’s not something my mom cooked because my dad didn’t like tuna. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen it on a restaurant menu either. Tuna casserole is home cooked comfort food all the way. It’s about as old school American as you can get. I love it unironically. All the elements work in harmony and the creamy fishiness that takes me back to a place that I never knew.
For some reason I just don't like tuna in a heated dish. As you said, a cold sandwich or salad works for me.I'd just go hungry instead. I love a tuna sandwich. Tuna on a salad is fine.
For some reason I just don't like tuna in a heated dish. As you said, a cold sandwich or salad works for me.I'd just go hungry instead. I love a tuna sandwich. Tuna on a salad is fine.
Oh, I agree with you actually. I wouldn't have even had this on my list!I get we have different tastes. This is the first one I have an aversion to. I'd just go hungry instead. I love a tuna sandwich. Tuna on a salad is fine. I've made some snobby comments but just in fun. I've recently been told I eat like a toddler. Some snob. Just no tuna casserole for me, thanks. More for you!It's not. First of his rankings I vehemently disagree with.I was ready to die on the "this is a top 20 noodle dish" hill. And every time I try to bougie it up, I regret it.#19 Tuna noodle casserole
Origin: The culinary hotbeds of America, Australia and Finland
Tuna casserole is a mid-century hotdish made with egg noodles, canned tuna and a cream sauce. Most recipes use canned soup for the sauce so your can opener is the most important kitchen gadget. A crispy topping of bread crumbs, potato chips or corn flakes is essential and you can stir in some cheese if that’s the way you roll.
This isn’t a nostalgia ranking–I have no personal connection with the dish. It’s not something my mom cooked because my dad didn’t like tuna. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen it on a restaurant menu either. Tuna casserole is home cooked comfort food all the way. It’s about as old school American as you can get. I love it unironically. All the elements work in harmony and the creamy fishiness that takes me back to a place that I never knew.
I personally love the dish, but also recognize that it's a controversial dish. My wife loathes it. Based on my wife's reaction to it I wasn't expecting it to crack anyone else's top 50.Oh, I agree with you actually. I wouldn't have even had this on my list!I get we have different tastes. This is the first one I have an aversion to. I'd just go hungry instead. I love a tuna sandwich. Tuna on a salad is fine. I've made some snobby comments but just in fun. I've recently been told I eat like a toddler. Some snob. Just no tuna casserole for me, thanks. More for you!It's not. First of his rankings I vehemently disagree with.I was ready to die on the "this is a top 20 noodle dish" hill. And every time I try to bougie it up, I regret it.#19 Tuna noodle casserole
Origin: The culinary hotbeds of America, Australia and Finland
Tuna casserole is a mid-century hotdish made with egg noodles, canned tuna and a cream sauce. Most recipes use canned soup for the sauce so your can opener is the most important kitchen gadget. A crispy topping of bread crumbs, potato chips or corn flakes is essential and you can stir in some cheese if that’s the way you roll.
This isn’t a nostalgia ranking–I have no personal connection with the dish. It’s not something my mom cooked because my dad didn’t like tuna. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen it on a restaurant menu either. Tuna casserole is home cooked comfort food all the way. It’s about as old school American as you can get. I love it unironically. All the elements work in harmony and the creamy fishiness that takes me back to a place that I never knew.
My comment was that it's not a top 20 dish.
Great stuff if made well.#16 Chow Fun
Origin: Guangzhou, China
Chow Fun is the most aptly named dish in the countdown since SpaghettiOs. It’s a Cantonese recipe using wide rice noodles (hor fun) stir-fried with bean sprouts, green onions and a protein of some kind. Beef is the traditional version but I think the noodles work just as well with the smoky sweetness of Chinese BBQ pork (char siu).
Like the rice noodles we encountered earlier in Thailand, hor fun can be difficult to work with. You need a really hot wok to get a bit of char but the noodles have annoying tendencies to stick together and tear apart. The natural reaction is to add a little more oil but it’s very easy to overdo it and end up with a greasy plate. If the cook can pass these challenges, chow fun is a fabulous dish. The noodles are nice and chewy, there’s a little bit of crunch from the bean sprouts and the flavors of the meat and soy sauce permeate the whole shebang.
I personally love the dish, but also recognize that it's a controversial dish. My wife loathes it. Based on my wife's reaction to it I wasn't expecting it to crack anyone else's top 50.
One of my favorites. Easily top 5 for me#16 Chow Fun
Origin: Guangzhou, China
Chow Fun is the most aptly named dish in the countdown since SpaghettiOs. It’s a Cantonese recipe using wide rice noodles (hor fun) stir-fried with bean sprouts, green onions and a protein of some kind. Beef is the traditional version but I think the noodles work just as well with the smoky sweetness of Chinese BBQ pork (char siu).
Like the rice noodles we encountered earlier in Thailand, hor fun can be difficult to work with. You need a really hot wok to get a bit of char but the noodles have annoying tendencies to stick together and tear apart. The natural reaction is to add a little more oil but it’s very easy to overdo it and end up with a greasy plate. If the cook can pass these challenges, chow fun is a fabulous dish. The noodles are nice and chewy, there’s a little bit of crunch from the bean sprouts and the flavors of the meat and soy sauce permeate the whole shebang.
It certainly doesn't compare to raw/rare tuna, which is spectacular.I personally love the dish, but also recognize that it's a controversial dish. My wife loathes it. Based on my wife's reaction to it I wasn't expecting it to crack anyone else's top 50.
There's an olfactory receptor some have that makes cilantro taste like soap. I suspect there's something similar that makes hot tuna taste like wet cat food to some of us.
I personally love the dish, but also recognize that it's a controversial dish. My wife loathes it. Based on my wife's reaction to it I wasn't expecting it to crack anyone else's top 50.
There's an olfactory receptor some have that makes cilantro taste like soap. I suspect there's something similar that makes hot tuna taste like wet cat food to some of us.
I always order Chow Fun over Chow Mein#16 Chow Fun
Origin: Guangzhou, China
Chow Fun is the most aptly named dish in the countdown since SpaghettiOs. It’s a Cantonese recipe using wide rice noodles (hor fun) stir-fried with bean sprouts, green onions and a protein of some kind. Beef is the traditional version but I think the noodles work just as well with the smoky sweetness of Chinese BBQ pork (char siu).
Like the rice noodles we encountered earlier in Thailand, hor fun can be difficult to work with. You need a really hot wok to get a bit of char but the noodles have annoying tendencies to stick together and tear apart. The natural reaction is to add a little more oil but it’s very easy to overdo it and end up with a greasy plate. If the cook can pass these challenges, chow fun is a fabulous dish. The noodles are nice and chewy, there’s a little bit of crunch from the bean sprouts and the flavors of the meat and soy sauce permeate the whole shebang.
Yep. Love me some tuna sushi and some seared, well-made tuna.I personally love the dish, but also recognize that it's a controversial dish. My wife loathes it. Based on my wife's reaction to it I wasn't expecting it to crack anyone else's top 50.
There's an olfactory receptor some have that makes cilantro taste like soap. I suspect there's something similar that makes hot tuna taste like wet cat food to some of us.
Tuna casserole is just disgusting. Chicken noodle soup is wonderful. Tuna casserole is food poisoning waiting to happen—or wait, it seems like food poisoning waiting to happen. Whatever it is, it's sitting on my plate and waiting to be politely swept away into the disposal because the garbage will stink to high heaven if you put it in there.
Gross.
I can understand people not liking tuna casserole but it's probably a lower risk food poisoning than most items in this countdown because the ingredients come from cans.
I personally love the dish, but also recognize that it's a controversial dish. My wife loathes it. Based on my wife's reaction to it I wasn't expecting it to crack anyone else's top 50.
There's an olfactory receptor some have that makes cilantro taste like soap. I suspect there's something similar that makes hot tuna taste like wet cat food to some of us.
Punch line: something, something, Jorma Kaukonen
Also add Thyme and Shallots. It's even better the next day reheated in the oven with a little milk added since the noodles will have soaked up some of the liquid.#38 Viral TikTok Pasta w/ Cherry Tomatoes & Feta
Origin: Finland
One more trendy TikTok recipe for the kids. Finnish food blogger and TikToker Liemessa went viral in 2019 with this short video set to music by Portugal. The Man.
It’s a dead simple prep made with cherry tomatoes, a block of feta cheese, garlic and olive oil baked in a 400 degree oven until the tomatoes burst. Once out of the oven, you gently stir the tomatoes and melted cheese, add some cooked pasta to the same baking dish and garnish with some fresh basil.
It's quite an ingenious little recipe--I like how the sweet acidity of the tomato melds with the salty and tangy creaminess of the cheese. I’ve cooked it a few times since when I’ve had too many cherry tomatoes. It definitely works better with a brick of feta but crumbled cheese will suffice if that’s all you have.
I don't mind tuna casserole. It hits the comfort food spot sometimes.Yep. Love me some tuna sushi and some seared, well-made tuna.I personally love the dish, but also recognize that it's a controversial dish. My wife loathes it. Based on my wife's reaction to it I wasn't expecting it to crack anyone else's top 50.
There's an olfactory receptor some have that makes cilantro taste like soap. I suspect there's something similar that makes hot tuna taste like wet cat food to some of us.
But warmed up tuna in a can? One of the few things I won't eat.
Love a good Ramen to the point I would likely have this in my top 5.#15 Ramen
Origin: Japan
Ramen noodles are similar to the Chinese egg noodles used for chow mein and lo mein. Even the name is derived from the Chinese word lamian which means pulled noodles. The dish came to Japan in the late 19th century from Chinese settlers in the port city of Yokohama. The dish gained popularity in Japan during times of scarcity during WWII and the post-war occupation. It soon became a national obsession and ramen houses throughout the country competed to perfect the dish What was once a Chinese import is now a Japanese export with ramen restaurants in virtually every major city.
Ramen noodles can be served in many ways but I’m going to talk about the most familiar preparation: noodles served in a hot broth with assorted toppings. The classic broth options are miso, shoyu (soy sauce), shio (salt) and tonkotsu (pork) and spicy broths have grown in popularity more recently. Broth recipes are closely guarded secrets and in extreme cases have been elevated to an art form. There are scores of topping options of meats with raw and cooked vegetables but I need to mention two specific highlights: chashu, the slow simmered slices of pork, and ajitama, the marinated half-boiled eggs with the delicious jammy yolks.
In a move that will please everyone, I’m excluding instant ramen noodles for reasons I’ll explain when I get to them.
Same here. It's so versatile. Great comfort food on a cool day.Love a good Ramen to the point I would likely have this in my top 5.#15 Ramen
Origin: Japan
Ramen noodles are similar to the Chinese egg noodles used for chow mein and lo mein. Even the name is derived from the Chinese word lamian which means pulled noodles. The dish came to Japan in the late 19th century from Chinese settlers in the port city of Yokohama. The dish gained popularity in Japan during times of scarcity during WWII and the post-war occupation. It soon became a national obsession and ramen houses throughout the country competed to perfect the dish What was once a Chinese import is now a Japanese export with ramen restaurants in virtually every major city.
Ramen noodles can be served in many ways but I’m going to talk about the most familiar preparation: noodles served in a hot broth with assorted toppings. The classic broth options are miso, shoyu (soy sauce), shio (salt) and tonkotsu (pork) and spicy broths have grown in popularity more recently. Broth recipes are closely guarded secrets and in extreme cases have been elevated to an art form. There are scores of topping options of meats with raw and cooked vegetables but I need to mention two specific highlights: chashu, the slow simmered slices of pork, and ajitama, the marinated half-boiled eggs with the delicious jammy yolks.
In a move that will please everyone, I’m excluding instant ramen noodles for reasons I’ll explain when I get to them.
Take and make a thynne foyle of dowh, and kerue it on pieces, and cast hym on boiling water & seeþ it wele. Take chese and grate it, and butter imelte, cast bynethen and abouven as losyns; and serue forth.
Always knew Eephus was invited to the cookout.#14 Baked macaroni and cheese
Origin: England
Macaroni and cheese has an interesting history. The first recorded recipe for mac & cheese goes back to the late 14th century:
Take and make a thynne foyle of dowh, and kerue it on pieces, and cast hym on boiling water & seeþ it wele. Take chese and grate it, and butter imelte, cast bynethen and abouven as losyns; and serue forth.
Thomas Jefferson’s personal chef brought the dish to the Americas after he encountered it in Paris. It remained a delicacy of the upper classes throughout the 19th century until mass production of the basic ingredients made it a dish of the people.
In spite of being a native cheesehead, mac & cheese was never a big deal for me. My family would occasionally eat the Kraft stuff and it was a cafeteria staple at school that was best avoided. It wasn’t until I married into a Black family that I understood the gravity of the dish. There was a pan of it at every holiday dinner, social event or church function; a lot of it was mediocre and underseasoned but occasionally somebody cooked a good batch that gave a glimpse of the possibilities. I liked it so much that I eventually started baking and bringing my own so there would be some certainty on the table. Mac & cheese is another great team player that compliments barbecue, turkey, yams and greens equally well. My in-laws are old now and don’t entertain as much anymore but my mac & cheese has gotten me a lot of love over the decades.
It’s an easy recipe. It’s pasta baked in a mornay sauce, topped with more cheese and a crispy layer. There are a lot of different ways you can go with the cheese but few of them are wrong as long as you use enough. You can keep your add-ins like truffle oil and bacon. I’ll add some mustard for flavor but otherwise mostly play the hits although I make do a mac & cheese with leftover Buffalo chicken dip after the Super Bowl and it was excellent.
Tonkatsu ramen might be my #1. Maybe deduct points for it not being feasible for most people to make at home. I think there’s also an argument for the noodles (which are admittedly yummy) not being a star of the show. But God do I love it.
Corrected by the tuna casserole guy. Mortifying.Tonkatsu ramen might be my #1. Maybe deduct points for it not being feasible for most people to make at home. I think there’s also an argument for the noodles (which are admittedly yummy) not being a star of the show. But God do I love it.
Apologies for being Mr. Pedantic Noodle Guy (again) but the ramen is tonkOtsu. TonkAtsu is the fried pork cutlet.
I honestly thought Buldak would have qualified as instant ramen even if it's not brothy
Fine. I'll try it. I have one package of instant ramen noodles left from the last bulk purchase. Next time I'm hungry. Might be awhile. It was work to finish the Sunday gravy leftovers and I may need a fast.Instant ramen, some sliced green onions and carrots, a poached egg, and a slice of american cheese is amazingly delicious.
@Chaos34
Yeah definitely want those wider noodles.I’ve been following from the start … fantastic stuff @Eephus and thanks so much for doing this.
Another one with Italian heritage here, so I’m very familiar with all of the Italian dishes listed so far, but I am learning so much with all of the others.
I made a nice Pad See Ew today and it turned out ok, maybe a 7/10. I only had the more common pad Thai noodles and not the broader noodles that go better with this dish. Apparently the broader noodles caramelize better. Mrs. Punk enjoyed it, so it is on the make again list. I hope to do a few more with the home version of the crab house garlic noodles next.
Tonkatsu ramen might be my #1. Maybe deduct points for it not being feasible for most people to make at home. I think there’s also an argument for the noodles (which are admittedly yummy) not being a star of the show. But God do I love it.
Apologies for being Mr. Pedantic Noodle Guy (again) but the ramen is tonkOtsu. TonkAtsu is the fried pork cutlet.
I enjoy ravioli but I've never had one of those revelatory ravioli makers around me. So my most common application is a store bought refrigerator case ravioli in either red sauce or a butter sauce. I prefer butter sauce. Sometimes I'll do a butternut squash one and brown the butter a bit for the sauce with some fresh sage. Autumnal.
Making my own pasta is the one home cooking trend I've never fallen for, so it's not as if I have a home recipe either.