Noodling Around

How To Recreate Tinga Malaysia, The Winning Dish at Tiato’s Noodle-Off

Photo: House of An

The House of An has a new dish to serve at its SoCal restaurants Crustacean, AnQi, and Tiato. The company held a noodle-off this week with local cooks preparing their own recipes to the judgment of local journalists for a cool grand in prize money and a place for the dish on the menus. With its finger on the pulse of what L.A. really wants to eat, a hybrid of Mexican and southeast Asian cooking took the day (eat your heart out, Xoia) in a Fragrant Tinga Malaysia, a blend of chorizo, chicken, and flat-noodles or vermicelli with pasilla chiles, engineered by Marina Del Rey’s Cecilia Fabulich. See the full recipe below.

Recipe: Fragrant Tinga Malaysia
from Cecilia Fabulich

3/4 flat noodles or vermicelli
2 tbl peanut oil
2 Tbl brown sugar **
2 Tbl soy sauce
2 Tbl Rice vinegar
2 Tbl fish sauce
1 Tbl sherry
1/2 tsp corn starch

2 boneless skinless chicken thighs about 6 ounces
6 oz firm dry chorizo, such as La Espanola brand or dry longaniza
1 C diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 C slivered roasted pasilla chile
2 T chopped mint
2 T chopped cilantro

Boil noodles in salted water until tender. Drain and set aside.

Combine sauce ingredients: Brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, and fish sauce. Mix and set aside.

Wash chicken thighs, remove skin, slice thinly, pat dry and set aside on paper towels.

Slice chorizo into 1/4” “coins.” Saute chorizo in oil in a large skillet over moderate heat, stirring until fat is rendered, about two minutes. Set chorizo aside on paper towels to drain. Leave about 2 tsp of fat in skillet.

Sear chicken in skillet, stir fry on all sides until cooked through. Add crushed pepper and stir for about 1 minute more. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add pasilla chili, stir fry for 2 minutes, then add tomatoes, mint, and cilantro to pan and cook until heated through. Stir in chicken and chorizo to combine.

Mix corn starch with 2 TBL of sauce mixture to combine. Stir remaining sauce.

Make a well in center of skillet. Add sauce ingredients, stir to bubbling. Then combine with entire pan ingredients. Toss in noodles.

Garnish: Slice 4 cloves of garlic paper thin. Dust with corn starch and fry in a hot oiled skillet.

Serves: 6-8

**Cooks note: Certain brands of chorizo are saltier than others. Balance the sweet and saltiness of the dish with the brown sugar to taste.

How To Recreate Tinga Malaysia, The Winning Dish at Tiato’s Noodle-Off