Thursday, May 13, 2010

Katie's Awesome Peanut Noodles

Ok I lied. I have some time of my hands before my cousin's rehearsal dinner for her wedding and I found myself wanting peanut noodles for lunch. Sooo, I've decided to share with you guys the recipe for my peanut noodles despite John not being there to contribute to the blog cause he has to go to work at Target at 4 or 5.

Anyways, these noodles are always a hit at parties and they have punch-you-in-the-face flavor. Although, if you're not tough enough for that you can also adjust the recipe to your liking.

NOTE: I made a half recipe in the pictures, so if the measurements look off that's why.

So this is what you start with:

Yes, I know it's a lot of ingredients, but they're all quite important. Also, if you buy them once, they'll last you many times making this sauce, except the peanut butter, but that's relatively cheap.

A package of spaghetti, or any other noodle you want to use as long as it's not too thin. It has to be able to stand up to this sauce.
1 cup of creamy peanut butter.
1/3 - 1/2 cup of soy sauce depending on how salty you like it.
2 tablespoons of hoisin sauce.
1 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil.
2 tablespoons of rice vinegar (plain vinegar works too)
Juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 lime, or a splash of orange juice
1 teaspoon chili oil (can be substituted with 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes or 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon sugar
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
Optional: sesame seeds, a few chopped scallions

First, you set some water to boil for the pasta.

Then, you put the peanut butter and the soy sauce in a mixing bowl and combine until smooth. Yes, it will look yucky at first and it takes a while to combine, but eventually it will be all nice and smooth.

Before mixing:


After mixing:



Then add the hoisin sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, hot chili oil, and ginger and mix it up. The mixture will still look pretty much the same as the picture above.

Next, put the garlic through a garlic press, but if you don't have one of these, smash the garlic to peel it (as I always do) then chop up the smashed pieces as much as small as humanly possible, then smush them with the flat of your knife:


At some point, the water will boil while you're mixing the sauce up and you should then add the pasta:


Anyways, back to the sauce. I happened to have half a lemon on hand today so I used that instead of the orange or lime juice, but any of these will work perfectly:


So you should juice it into a separate bowl so you can pick out the seed like I did. OR you can be more efficient and squeeze the juice out over a sieve that is over the bowl. Hahah you can't really see the juice all too well in this yellowish bowl, but it's there! Promise!


Anyways, add that to the sauce:


And mix it in. You can also add sesame seeds into the sauce like I like to do:


Ok then drain the pasta when it's all nice and cooked. Then chop some scallions if you like.
I like the noodles warm so if you do too get yourself a bowl and put the plain pasta in it and add the sauce to it:


The reason I'm doing this instead of pouring all the sauce onto all of the pasta is because, if you don't eat all of the pasta right away, the sauce gets clumpy and dry on the noodles. If you leave the sauce separate, you can just mix it up some more til it is once again smooth and wonderful. Also, if you like the noodles cold like my brother, run cold water over them before serving or put them in the fridge for a bit.

Back to the plating: Mix the sauce in and garnish with scallions:


^^Don't they look amazing?!?! Yes. Yes they do.

Then give some to your brother (whose name is also John) who will want the noodles for lunch despite having already made a sandwich for himself. Just don't let the your cat (in this case, Eephus) eat them, nomatter how cute he is.


1 comments:

JB said...

I'm definitely going to try this recipe. But I'm not sharing the results with your brother. Unless he happens to be visiting.
Uncle John
(Yes, another John)

 

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