Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Two Asian Noodle Salads

(one tasted, one tested)

lettuce, shredded (the green kind!)
carrots, shredded
noodles (lo mein or something)
tomatoes, diced
celery, chopped
peanuts
green onions, chopped
cilantro
sesame seeds
lime-peanut sauce

Mix, arrange, garnish. I have no idea what's in the lime-peanut sauce at the moment, but I'll figure something out. I ordered this at Grandma's Bar & Grill in Fargo, ND yesterday. I was particularly interested in the sauce, because it sounded so similar to what I make sometimes with peanuts and noodles. This sauce wasn't thick and creamy like I expected, but more watery, like a salad dressing. It was still good, and all the extra veggies and stuff were really nice and refreshing. You could add chicken for $2, but that might have been a bit much.

cucumbers, peeled and sliced
ham, sliced
eggs, sliced
noodles (udon I think)
sesame seeds
peanut butter
sesame oil

The first three ingredients should be sliced into strips as much as possible. Mix the peanut butter and sesame oil and heat until they're mixed nice and creamy. Pile on some noodles, arrange the cucumbers, ham, and eggs on top, sprinkle some sesame seeds, and give it a generous helping of peanut sauce.

When I do this in the dining hall, I just use the microwave, but if you do it over a stove and add some other fun stuff like soy sauce in, anything could happen. I'm pretty sure there's more to this sauce the way Jenny (my boss) makes it, but I don't know what it is. Personally, I like just the peanut butter best, because the sweetness really complements the other ingredients well. I haven't yet figured out how to keep the sauce from thickening up too much when you add it to the cold salad...I don't know if it's just a matter of adding more oil or some other special ingredient...I'll experiment with this over the summer.