Fried noodle nest

I've been out of town and haven't been cooking much that's interesting.  I did find a great technique over the weekend.

If you are like me, you eat East Asian (Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Japanese) food fairly frequently.  I generally serve this cuisine on jasmine rice.  It works fine, but for a change, how about a fried noodle nest?  Just boil up some Asia noodles, drain them, and rinse them with water until they are no longer warm.  This will prevent them from cooking further and sticking together.  Spread the noodles out into separate "pillows".  I did 4 piles for 1lb of noodles. Pour off any excess water and let them dry maybe 30 minutes.  Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to the pan and heat just below the max setting.  I set my dial on 8 of 9.  When the oil gets good and hot, toss in a "pillow" and fry a couple of minutes without moving.  If the heat is too high, you will scorch the noodles.  If it is too low, they will more or less sit there.  You want the noodle to fry into a pancake basically.  Keep checking the edge of the noodles until the look done, then flip over.  Since the one side is fried into a contiguous chuck, the pillow retain its shape.  When the pillow is fried on both sides, remove it and drain on a paper towel.  Add some more oil and repeat.  The nest will be nicely crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.  I tossed some Vietnamese shrimp and snow pea dish on top and it was excellent.  The nests seem to keep OK in the fridge.
 
The noodles were Vietnamese rice stick variety and required soaking in hot water rather than actual boiling.

Easy and fun.