Spicy peanut noodles
Jun. 2nd, 2006 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138We've been having a few days of hot weather here and there, which means the revival of our seasonal standby meal, spicy peanut noodles. They're tasty, vegan (for those who care about such things), and only require cooking once every few meals of the stuff.
This recipe is heavily based on the one in the latest (and very poorly bound) Joy of Cooking edition. The main thing I've changed around is the methodology, though I've also tweaked some of the ingredients.
If you can get flat wheat noodles from an Asian grocery, great. If not, ordinary supermarket pasta will probably work just as well. Cook up a large batch of noodles (enough for several meals) according to the directions on the package, rinse them enough with cold water that you can handle them comfortably, and then anoint them with sesame oil and plunge your hands in. Squoosh them around until you're pretty sure that all of the noodles are thinly oiled, so they won't become irredeemably stuck together when they're cold. Store the noodles in the refrigerator, except for whatever portion (if any) you might want to eat as soon as the peanut sauce is done; your instant-gratification serving size can sit at room temperature.
Boil enough water to make at least one cup of strong black tea. Lapsang Soochong adds a nice touch of smokiness to the final flavor, but any reasonable sort of black tea is fine. Let the tea steep while you put the rest of the peanut sauce together.
The peanut sauce is the relatively messy part, and needs a blender. Feed your blender about 4 cloves of garlic, 4-6 little hot green chili peppers (we have a stash of them in the freezer), 1/2 c. rice vinegar, and 1/4 c. soy sauce. Whir them around until there are no visible chunks; pour the result into a bowl or other container that can hold at least 4 cups, let's say, with enough extra room for stirring. (I think our standard container is a 6-cup Rubbermaid thingy.)
Add 2 cups of unsalted smooth all-natural peanut butter, or whatever reasonable approximation is in one jar. (I think our regular brand is actually a bit less than 2 cups per jar now. Eh.) If it's been a hot day, the peanut butter will schloop right out of the jar fairly easily, and only need a bit of spatula encouragement at the bottom. Also add 1/2 c. sesame oil and 2T chili oil. Stir it around with the spatula toward homogeneity.
Measure out 1 c. of the (probably still hot) tea. If you want to, pour it into the blender and/or the peanut-butter jar to wash out any remaining residue, as long as it ends up in the sauce. If the tea is still hot, it'll help melt the peanut butter and make it more tractable. Continue stirring until the entire sauce is smooth and even, then store it in the fridge, where it will transmute from a thick liquid to a soft solid.
If you kept some noodles out to eat now, dollop some peanut sauce onto them and stir it around. Eat. If you have some leftover tea, make it into iced tea and/or drink it now.
For later meals, transfer your desired serving size into a microwaveable bowl, heat it up, and then add a dollop of cold peanut sauce afterward. The hot noodles should melt the sauce enough to distribute evenly as you stir everything around; the sauce's texture gets a bit weird if you microwave it directly.
The JOC's recipe says to cut the garlic into small pieces first; I have no idea why, considering the blender. It also calls for two different types of soy sauce, which I think is just stupid, as well as 3T sugar and 2T salt, which I leave out because our rice vinegar is pre-seasoned. If you can't find rice vinegar, they claim white vinegar should work just as well; I imagine cider vinegar might also sub in, though probably not balsamic. Also, they insist on putting the peanut butter into the blender, which makes cleanup about three times as messy, and inexplicably advise a storage limit of only a few days (we usually take about a week to work our way through the whole batch with no adverse consequences afaik).
The one time I tried using chunky peanut butter, it made absolutely no difference because it came out of the blender sans chunks. I've never tried the recommended garnish of small strips of peeled, seeded cucumber because the wombat-consort considers cucumber an abomination unto God. The sauce can also be supplemented with shredded (cooked!) chicken, which we haven't done for a while because of the extra hassle although it was reasonably tasty.
This recipe is heavily based on the one in the latest (and very poorly bound) Joy of Cooking edition. The main thing I've changed around is the methodology, though I've also tweaked some of the ingredients.
If you can get flat wheat noodles from an Asian grocery, great. If not, ordinary supermarket pasta will probably work just as well. Cook up a large batch of noodles (enough for several meals) according to the directions on the package, rinse them enough with cold water that you can handle them comfortably, and then anoint them with sesame oil and plunge your hands in. Squoosh them around until you're pretty sure that all of the noodles are thinly oiled, so they won't become irredeemably stuck together when they're cold. Store the noodles in the refrigerator, except for whatever portion (if any) you might want to eat as soon as the peanut sauce is done; your instant-gratification serving size can sit at room temperature.
Boil enough water to make at least one cup of strong black tea. Lapsang Soochong adds a nice touch of smokiness to the final flavor, but any reasonable sort of black tea is fine. Let the tea steep while you put the rest of the peanut sauce together.
The peanut sauce is the relatively messy part, and needs a blender. Feed your blender about 4 cloves of garlic, 4-6 little hot green chili peppers (we have a stash of them in the freezer), 1/2 c. rice vinegar, and 1/4 c. soy sauce. Whir them around until there are no visible chunks; pour the result into a bowl or other container that can hold at least 4 cups, let's say, with enough extra room for stirring. (I think our standard container is a 6-cup Rubbermaid thingy.)
Add 2 cups of unsalted smooth all-natural peanut butter, or whatever reasonable approximation is in one jar. (I think our regular brand is actually a bit less than 2 cups per jar now. Eh.) If it's been a hot day, the peanut butter will schloop right out of the jar fairly easily, and only need a bit of spatula encouragement at the bottom. Also add 1/2 c. sesame oil and 2T chili oil. Stir it around with the spatula toward homogeneity.
Measure out 1 c. of the (probably still hot) tea. If you want to, pour it into the blender and/or the peanut-butter jar to wash out any remaining residue, as long as it ends up in the sauce. If the tea is still hot, it'll help melt the peanut butter and make it more tractable. Continue stirring until the entire sauce is smooth and even, then store it in the fridge, where it will transmute from a thick liquid to a soft solid.
If you kept some noodles out to eat now, dollop some peanut sauce onto them and stir it around. Eat. If you have some leftover tea, make it into iced tea and/or drink it now.
For later meals, transfer your desired serving size into a microwaveable bowl, heat it up, and then add a dollop of cold peanut sauce afterward. The hot noodles should melt the sauce enough to distribute evenly as you stir everything around; the sauce's texture gets a bit weird if you microwave it directly.
The JOC's recipe says to cut the garlic into small pieces first; I have no idea why, considering the blender. It also calls for two different types of soy sauce, which I think is just stupid, as well as 3T sugar and 2T salt, which I leave out because our rice vinegar is pre-seasoned. If you can't find rice vinegar, they claim white vinegar should work just as well; I imagine cider vinegar might also sub in, though probably not balsamic. Also, they insist on putting the peanut butter into the blender, which makes cleanup about three times as messy, and inexplicably advise a storage limit of only a few days (we usually take about a week to work our way through the whole batch with no adverse consequences afaik).
The one time I tried using chunky peanut butter, it made absolutely no difference because it came out of the blender sans chunks. I've never tried the recommended garnish of small strips of peeled, seeded cucumber because the wombat-consort considers cucumber an abomination unto God. The sauce can also be supplemented with shredded (cooked!) chicken, which we haven't done for a while because of the extra hassle although it was reasonably tasty.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2006-06-03 06:29 am (UTC)yum.
only, not eating for me now.