A mother-daughter conversation on food and cooking (mostly)

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Spicy Peanut Noodles with Raw Vegetables


Recently I bought a big chunk of tuna and grilled it. With it we had rice noodles with a sauce from Nina Simonds' Asian Noodles book. I added red pepper, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, and julienned carrots to the noodles.

Here's the sauce, which she calls Chinese Peanut Dressing. Sure, it has Chinese ingredients, but it can be used in a lot of ways, Chinese and not -- basically anytime you need a peanut sauce that isn't coconut-milk-based.

Combine in a food processor:

- a chunk of peeled ginger, enough to yield a few tablespoons minced
- 2-5 cloves garlic (recipe calls for 8, and I love garlic, but even 6 was too much)
- 1 teaspoon hot chile sauce (like Sriracha) or more
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 3.5 tablespoons sugar (less if you use scary sweetened hydrogenated peanut butter like Jif, but I know you would never do that)
- 3.5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce or Chinese black vinegar (I've never used the latter)
- 3 tablespoons sesame oil
- 5 tablespoons or more water or chicken broth

5 comments:

Kris said...

Do you usually serve this hot or cold? I've made similar sauces, but this one has everything I would want.

Eva said...

That was the way I felt about it, too, Mom! It's got exactly the right ingredients and zero fussy steps. I've served it both hot and cold...these noodles were at room temperature (the best). It doesn't get hard or clumpy when cold.

Anonymous said...

If you love Nina Simonds recipes as much as my husband does (he's the cook in the household) then you should definitely come and watch her video blog!

It's call Spices of Life
http://www.spicesoflife.com

Enjoy! Happy Holidays!

Anonymous said...

oops .. wanted to make it easy for your to click over there

http://www.spicesoflife.com

Anonymous said...

make that ..

http://www.spicesoflife.com