Spicy Peanut Noodles with Cucumber and Scallion

Spicy Peanut Noodles

For the past week I've been craving cold peanut noodles with cucumber.  I first had this dish in Beijing in the summer of 2010.  My partner, Lu, is from China and while visiting his parents in Shanghai we traveled to Beijing.  It was at the National Zoo - I was determined that I would see a panda on my first trip to China but there wasn't time to visit Sichuan on this trip - that I noticed people with takeout containers of noodles with a creamy light brown sauce, fresh scallion and julienned cucumbers on top.  After Lu explained what it was I decided that would be my lunch.  I make it a point to try the local cuisine no matter where I travel, and if this was the Beijing equivalent to a hot dog from a Manhattan street vendor then I was going for it.  It was great!  Sweet, savory and a little spicy and the cucumber set it off.

Lu has made this once or twice and it's always tasty, but I've never given it a shot... until today!  The noodles and the cucumber are the easy parts - boil some angel hair pasta and julienne a seedless cucumber.  It's the sauce that's the key, and it's here that I decided to get creative.  The fundamental ingredients are peanut butter, light soy sauce and chicken stock (or water).  Other typical ingredients are scallion, chili oil, sesame oil, hot red pepper flakes and grated or minced ginger.

I look at recipes as suggestions meant to inspire your creativity.  Now if you're baking, which is not my strong suit, it's a different story.  Today I coated the bottom of a small sauce pan with vegetable oil, heated it to a shimmer and added thinly sliced green onion (white and green sections) and some julienned ginger.  After a few minutes I added a dollop of peanut butter, a few splashes of soy, a splash of sesame oil, a splash of chili oil and enough warm water to make a smooth sauce.  When everything is well blended and the sauce is smooth I set it aside.  The noodles were drained and a handful go into a bowl, a few spoonfuls of sauce are added and lightly tossed and then the whole thing is topped off with julienned cucumber and fresh thinly sliced green onion.  It was exactly what I'd been craving, and I ate the whole thing.