It's been a bit over a year since the finishing strip of moulding was applied across the top of the original range hood in our remodeled kitchen. And we could not be happier with the function of all of the elements. The highlights for me are the 48" Wolf Rangetop with its centerpiece Wok Burner, a Magic Corner II spice rack and a Create Good Sinks ledge workstation. My husband is equally delighted with his Rev-a-Shelf KitchenAid cabinet lift and 30" Wolf Wall Oven. The kitchen is definitely the center of life in our home, and we designed this kitchen around cooking with friends.
Easy Green Chile Stuffed Poblano Peppers: Low-carb, Gluten-free and Highly Adaptable
October 06, 2022
This easy stuffed poblano pepper is robustly satisfying, flavored with green enchilada sauce and shredded cheese. The recipe is straightforward and highly adaptable, based on what vegetables are fresh and in season. It is equally good enjoyed as a vegetarian meal or stuffed with your choice of ground meats. No tortillas needed for that great enchilada flavor, and it plates up beautifully for company.
A farmers market bounty is transformed into poblanos stuffed with pork, corn, chopped poblano, tomatillo, shallots & garlic with a fresh tomatillo salsa instead of the top layer of cheese. |
Stuffed poblanos with turkey, tomato, chopped poblano, garlic and onion. Topped with a browned, bubbly layer of mozzarella and garnished with cilantro and dill blossoms |
I discovered this wonderful recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen for Cheesy Stuffed Poblanos with Ground Turkey back in 2016, when I was doing the South Beach 2-week low-carb insulin-reset diet. It was so hearty and satisfying, that I find myself making variations of this recipe over the years using ingredients that I have on-hand. The dish does not require precise measurements, but regardless of variations, it always comes out beautiful and delicious. In fact, you don't even need to have poblanos or ground turkey to have an impressive, easy and satisfying meal.
The basics
To make a variation of this delicious dish, you just have to have a few ingredients on on hand, namely, some sort of stuffable pepper, mushrooms or meat for the filling, and enchilada sauce.
Peppers
While the original recipe called for two large and one small poblano chile, I have made this with four poblanos or five poblanos, orange or yellow bell peppers, Hatch chiles or a combination of different chiles.
Poblanos and Orange Bell Peppers stuffed with cremini mushrooms, hatch chile, shallots, the rest of the bell pepper and a mix of pizza cheese blend and sharp cheddar for delicious vegetarian version. |
When using poblanos, at least one chile is chopped up to add to the filling. When using bell pepper, I cut the pepper vertically to get two nice, cup shaped pieces from each pepper, and then chop up the remaining parts of the pepper to use in the filling.
A farmers market bounty with fresh poblanos, tomatillos, cilantro and scallion being washed. |
There is nothing quite like biting into hot, golden-brown burnished buns filled with succulent, salty and mildly sweet chunks of Chinese barbecue pork. A perfect marriage of Western-influenced yeasty milk bread and traditional Cantonese roast pork, we seek out this inexpensive, hand-held meal whenever we visit a Chinatown -- whether in LA, Boston, Vancouver, San Francisco, New York or D.C. Imagine our delight when we first tried making these at home and they came out beautiful and totally delicious! Over the years, we have compared several dough recipes and developed a pork-zucchini version for a more balanced hand-held meal.
Perhaps nothing is as emblematic of a perfect East-West fusion as the Chinese Bakery. Traditional Chinese homes did not have ovens, which utilize a great deal of fuel. As a result, people would go to the bakery to pick up roasted meats. Alongside the whole roasted ducks and chickens are the red-tinted slabs of Chinese barbecued pork, or char siu 叉燒, which literally means fork-roasted. The sauce permeates and roasts into the meat, leaving a finger-friendly, dry surface and tender, flavorful interior. Char siu can be enjoyed straight from the broiler or grill, and it forms the starting ingredient for a wide variety of delicious dishes. It is often enjoyed as a hand-held snack enveloped in a white, fluffy steamed bun -- a filling staple of push cart dim sum tea parlors called char siu bao 叉燒包.
Eight Treasures Sticky Rice Bundt Cake: Ringing in the Lunar New Year with Ba Bao Fan 八寶飯
February 10, 2022
We celebrated the first weekend in the Year of the Tiger with a dumpling wrapping party -- the first since the pandemic. It was great fun to get together with friends and family again. After enjoying all-you-can-eat pork-cabbage dumplings, gluten-free crystal dumplings, and various potluck sides, the evening was capped with this spectacular (and surprisingly easy) Instant Pot riff on a festive Chinese treat. Ba Bao Fan 八寶飯 literally translates to Eight Treasures Rice.
Thanks to the pandemic, I had plenty of time for online cooking courses in the MasterClass series. These in turn gave me the confidence to try making a recipe for spring rolls that I had clipped and carried around with me for over 4 decades. Although I did not much care for the shrimp-snow pea filling because the soy sauce masked the delicate flavors of the main ingredients, I found myself making spring rolls over and over again, basing my seasonings on Grace Young's vegetable spring roll recipe in The Breath of a Wok. What I did learn from that old recipe was how simple it was to make spring roll wrappers. Can't get to the Asian Market for wrappers? No problem if you have flour, water and a pastry brush!
Among my more ambitious cooking endeavors was this beautiful, rich mushroom-topped celebration rice cake, based on a vegan recipe I found online by Yotam Ottolenghi. I had trouble finding some of the ingredients, so I adapted the recipe inspired by childhood memories of Ba Bao Fan 八寶飯. I also wanted to save time by figuring out how to make it using a Bundt pan that fit perfectly in my 6 quart Instant Pot. It was stunning to both eye and tongue!
A riff on Ba Bao Fan with 8 savory treasures, modified from Ottolenghi's Celebration Sticky Rice Cake |
Interestingly, I learned that "Bundt" itself was a word invented by Dave Dalquist by adding a "t" to part of the German word bundkuchen. Although Google translate suggests it might mean anything from a Federation of Cakes to just a bunch of cakes, the Norway House website states that bundkuchen means "a cake for a gathering." So perfect for a lunar New Year celebration... albeit by Zoom for 2021
So when it came time to plan the finale for our 2022 Dumpling Club party to ring in the Year of the Tiger (now that everyone is vaccinated and boosted), I decided to try making a more traditional, sweet Ba Bao Fan 八寶飯 in a Bundt pan for extra pizzazz.
When the weather turns cool, nothing is more satisfying than a nice bowl of chili. And a chili bar certainly makes for stress-free entertaining, accommodating vegan, carnivore and everyone in between! These four chili recipes -- chipotle black bean chili, white bean chicken chili, chipotle red and white chili with sausage, and a hearty vegetarian chili -- have become our go-to recipes over the decades They are simple, wholesome, delicious and adaptable.
2 1/2 cups dried kidney beans, soaked overnight in 2-3" of water to cover
Three of the four chili recipes below utilize canned beans as a shortcut. The fourth was the very first chili we tried making, and perhaps the most popular. With an Instant Pot, the whole world of interesting beans becomes available. We enjoy heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo, and have made most of the quick chilis also using dried beans. During the summer, feel free to add in any fresh peppers that you find!
Toppings for chili are limited only by your imagination. Some of our favorites include:
•shredded cheese (sharp cheddar, jack, crumbled cojita)
•scallions
•cilantro
•avocado
•lime juice
•cooked chopped bacon
•chopped red or yellow onion
•Sriracha sauce
•Cholula sauce
•Sarasota Heat hot sauce
•Texas Pete hot sauce
•tortilla chips
•plain Greek yogurt or sour cream (optional: mix in a tsp of lime juice or ranch seasoning to taste)
Vegetable Chili (Vegan except for optional toppings)
The chopped vegetables in this chili make for such hearty bites that no one ever notices that it is vegetarian, and it usually disappears first. If no one has dietary restrictions, we usually do not label it. More recently, we have noticed that if we do label it to accommodate our vegan friends, then some people do not let themselves have the chance to enjoy it. What a strange phenomenon.
Dried kidney beans are the base for this chili, but I recently made it with a blend of pinto beans and kidney beans to a nice visual effect. The array of vegetables was inspired by the Vegetarian Chili in Chili Madness by Jane Butel, but I use a different method of thickening the chili and a different set of seasonings.
Shortcut to the printable Love2Chow recipe.
Love2Chow Vegetable Chili
2 1/2 cups dried kidney beans, soaked overnight in 2-3" of water to cover
2 Tbs olive oil
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
4 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped or crushed
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 tomatoes, chopped
1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs Penzey's Chili 9000
2 Tbs Penzey's Medium Hot Chili Powder
2 tsp salt (adjust down if using chili powder with salt in it)
Optional, crushed red pepper or cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried oregano (preferably Mexican)
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
Up to 1 small can tomato paste
1 1/2 green or yellow bell peppers, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
Toppings (see above, or step 4 for suggestions)
1. In the morning, add more water to beans if necessary to keep them submerged. Test for softness. Drain and rinse when just tender, or they will start to fall apart during cooking. Transfer to a large, heavy saucepan with water to cover. Bring to boil over high head, then lower heat and continue boiling the beans, partially covered, until tender, about 1 h. Watch the water level carefully and add to keep beans in liquid.
OR add unsoaked beans to Instant Pot with 1 inch of water to cover. Cook at high pressure for 30 min in an Instant Pot, let sit for 20 min for natural release. (Cook 20 min if soaked overnight).
2. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook onions and garlic until translucent. Add celery, carrots, tomatoes, lemon juice, and all the spices. Cook, covered, until the vegetables are nearly tender, about 10-15 min. Add the bell peppers and cook another 10 min.
3. Add the beans and the water in which they cooked. Stir thoroughly and simmer for 30 min over low heat, adding tablespoons of either tomato paste or water as necessary to achieve desired texture, stirring to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pot.
This batch of Vegetable Chili was a bit soupier due to use of Instant Pot. Next time will use less water in Instant Pot, or reserve the cooking water and not add it all to the chili. |
4. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve with tortilla chips, chopped red onion, chopped scallions, avodaco slices, and lime to keep it vegan; add shredded cheddar and jack cheeses, plain yogurt spiked with lime juice or ranch seasoning for vegetarians. Add crumbled bacon or cooked sausage for the carnivores.
The next three chili recipes were modified from Superfast Suppers by Cooking Light magazine, which was published in 2002. I almost always substitute fresh garlic or onions, and it is pretty easy to use dried beans if you have time. See Love2Chow tips, below.
Chipotle Red & White Bean Chili Omit sausage for vegan.
This is one of my favorite quick chili recipes. It looks pretty, tastes great, and is simple to make. While it calls for crumbled sweet Italian sausage, I have also made it as a vegetarian chili. I had some fresh poblano chiles, cubanelle chiles and carrots from a friend's garden, which I added in with the the bell peppers, and served it with optional sausage on the side for toppings.
Shortcut to the printable recipe.
Chipotle Red & White Bean Chili with sausage |
Chipotle Red & White Bean Chili. Serves 4, total time 20 min.
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 pound pork sausage (sweet Italian)
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1-2 Tbs. Penzey's Bold Taco seasoning or 1 Tbs each Bold Taco (has salt) and Penzey's 9000 (no salt)
1 (14.5 oz) can Mexican style diced tomatoes, drained
1 (8 oz) can no-salt added tomato sauce
1 (15 oz) can no salt added red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 (19 oz) can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 chipotle peppers in adobe sauce, chopped, plus 2 tsp adobe sauce from can
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Toppings (see above, or step 4 for suggestions)
1. Cook onion, sausage and peppers, Drain and return to pan.
2. Add seasoning, tomatoes, tomato sauce, kidney beans, cannellini beans, and chipotle peppers
3. Bring to boil, cover and simmer at least 5 min.
4. Serve with fresh cilantro, and optional corn bread, avocado, sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
White Bean Chicken Chili
This is my husband's favorite chili to make and eat. Part of the beans are pureed to thicken this delightful creamy chili.
Shortcut to the printable recipe
White Bean Chicken Chili.
1 tsp olive oil
1 red onion (~150 g), chopped (~ 1 cup)
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 (15.5 oz) cans cannellini beans - do NOT drain
3 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 cup of no salt added chicken broth
1.5 tsp Penzey's Arizona Dreaming seasoning (or other salt-free Mexican seasoning)
1 cup (4 oz w) shredded pepper jack cheese
~1/4 tsp salt, to taste
1. Saute onion and garlic in hot oil in Dutch oven until translucent.
2. Mash one can of beans with a fork. Add both mashed and unmashed beans with their water and the next three ingredients to the pot. Bring to a booil and simmer 15-20 min.
3. Add cheese, stirring constantly, until melted. Salt to taste.
4. Serve with chopped fresh cilantro, chopped green onions, plain yogurt, salsa, or crushed tortilla chips.
Chipotle Black Bean Chili (Vegan except for optional toppings)
This is my husband's favorite chili to make and eat. Part of the beans are pureed to thicken this delightful creamy chili.
Shortcut to the printable recipe.
Chipotle Black Bean Chili (makes 6 2-cup servings).
2 tsp olive oil
10 oz (w) chopped onion
3 Tbs minced garlic
3 Tbs chili powder (Penzey's medium hot chili powder is salt-free)
2 canned chipotle chiles, minced, plus 1-2 Tbs. adobo sauce
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp salt or more to taste
4 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained (or 2 cups dried, precooked)
4 (14.5 oz) cans no salt added diced tomatoes with juice
1 (4.5 oz) cans chopped green chiles with juice
Toppings (See below)
Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until tender about 2 min. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 min, stirring occasionally.
OR transfer sauteed onion and garlic to slow cooker, add remaining ingredients and slow cook for at least an hour. It can be kept warm and served out of the slow cooker.
Serve with toppings of choice (shredded cheddar, cilantro, scallions, onions, bacon bits, tortilla chips, hot sauce)
Freeze leftovers in 1 or 2 cup portions. As mentioned in Superfast Suppers, this can be used as a hamburger topper, or be incorporated into enchilada casseroles, turkey chili mac, chili pie with zucchini and corn under corn bread mix.
A triple recipe of Chipotle Black Bean Chili with toppings bar |
🐾 For each 15 oz can of beans, I usually get about 1.3-1.5 cups of drained beans. Since dry beans swell about 3x, substitute 1/2 cup of dry for each 15 oz can. Or just make a bit of extra and measure out the beans after they are cooked.
🐾 Freeze cubed leftover chicken or turkey in 1 cup portions, to be pulled out when you feel like chicken chili.
🍃 When you open a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, be sure to freeze the extra peppers in an ice cube tray, with the sauce spooned on top. They usually thaw pretty quickly for chopping, or puree the whole thing and freeze tablespoons that can be added directly to the chili.
DID YOU TRY ANY OF THESE RECIPES? What is your favorite homemade chili?
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Tag @love2chowblog and hashtag it #love2chow
All photos and content © 2021.
All Rights Reserved. Contact admin@love2chow.com for permissions.
All Rights Reserved. Contact admin@love2chow.com for permissions.
The first time I had this lemony rich version of chicken piccata, I fell in love with Cerignola olives and caper berries. We had just eaten at the now closed Lidia's Pittsburgh, and I immediately bought Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen. Making this dish at home is even more satisfying. It is a surprisingly easy way to get a kid- and nanny-pleasing meal on the table! And its rich flavors & do ahead ease with a quick finish make for a great, visually pleasing meal for guests as well.
At its simplest, chicken piccata is flavored with lemon, capers, butter and maybe some wine. This is the most robustly delicious version I have ever tried, and it is rather easy to make.
I did not expect that the strong flavors in this dish would appeal to so many -- from young children to a nanny that likes plain hamburgers with all the toppings removed. I started off making the dish simply because I loved it, expecting perhaps some complaints because pickled items with a strong flavor often do not appeal to kids. But these flavors marry so well with the rich lemon and briny olive notes (x3) perfectly counterbalanced against the soothing buttery olive oil, all carried to the mouth by extremely tender chicken.
After browning the scallopini, a pan sauce is made. To finish the dish, rewarm the chicken in the sauce and top with parsley. |
The true secrets to this dish are the lemon slices fried in butter and olive oil and the large buttery Cerignola olives. Pounding the chicken into thin slices means they cook very quickly are stay amazingly tender. And of course, the caper berries add another level of excitement. Although the recipe says to remove the lemon slices along with the garlic, I think they look beautiful and have caught people fighting over who gets to eat them!
The Restaurant
There are lots of chicken piccatas out there. But the lemon-butter-caper sauce of versions I had tried growing up came across as rather pedestrian and bland, weighed down by excess breading, despite the promise of those three ingredients. Everything changed for me when my husband and I dined at Lidia's Pittsburgh for the first time about 20 years ago. Lidia Bastianich is a popular PBS cooking star, and it was exciting to discover her newly opened restaurant in the Steel City.
Lidia's on May 21, 2019. This would have been my last time eating here before they closed in Sept. 2019, but unfortunately the broken water main down the road took out their water. |
This sublime dish is simply entitled Pollo al Limone on the menu, consisting of chicken breast, roasted lemon, capers, Cerignola olives and served with a side of velvety spinach. The flavors were bold - briny, lemony and rich. And the mound of bright green spinach was truly velvety, complementing the chicken perfectly.
There were three different sources of green-olive-like flavor: the sliced olives, tiny round capers with lemony floral overtones, and occasional rich bites of something else...
When we first enjoyed the dish, we noted some stemmed, olive green, teardrop-shaped fruits that were full of tiny, edible seeds in addition to the usual small round capers. We inquired with the waiter, who informed us that they were caper berries. While capers represent the unopened flower bud, caper berries are formed from the fertilized fruit of the caper plant.
This is a quick and easy soup to make, light and refreshing with emerald slivers of spinach and tiny white cubes of tofu suspended in a silky clear broth. I enjoy topping it with tiny cubes of pink Prosciutto (similar to Chinese dry cured hams) for an added punch, but it is equally enjoyable with vegan toppings such as mushrooms or chili crisp.
Spinach silken tofu soup in chicken broth with crisp prosciutto bits |
My father's family hails from Jiangsu, China, famed for one of the great regional cuisines of China. While growing up, I remember him talking about Lion Head Meatballs and West Lake Beef Soup. However, my parents thought the subtle and natural flavors highlighted in this style of cooking would not appeal to their American kids as much as the stronger flavored Sichuan dishes or richer Cantonese dim sum.
It was not until I was older that I realized the delicious, braised red-cooked (紅燒; hóngshāo; 'red braised') beef or chicken (which my mother simplified to be prepared so easily she named it "Lazy Chicken"), which we enjoyed so often, originated in the Su region before propagating out to other areas of China.
Thanks to Grace Young's cookbook The Breath of a Wok, I even got a chance to make my own Lion Head Meatballs, and I found that I loved the lighter flavors from my Dad's home town as highlighted in Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Fish and Rice, as much as I liked the spicy, pickled or fermented Jiangxi dishes of my Mom's. Possibly the most famous export of this region are the Chinese Soup Dumplings or pork xiao long bao (小笼包), made famous by the Taiwan-based chain Din Tai Fong.
Similar to the famous West Lake Beef soup, this gorgeous soup gets it silky mouthfeel from just the right amount of thickening of a clear broth with a cornstarch-water mixture at the end of cooking. This recipe is based on a spinach pork soup in The Land of Fish and Rice, but I found that the pork added a distracting texture without contributing to a richer flavor.
I happened to have some fried prosciutto bits lying around from another recipe, and the meat containing version of this soup was born. Dry cured ham from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Yunnan provinces are famed for their deep, rich flavor, but are hard to find in the US. My mother used to substitute Smithfield ham. Proscuitto is not quite as flavorful, but is similar to Jinhua ham, and adds a beautiful festive color.
By eliminating the need to cook the pork, the preparation was even further simplified. Best of all the soup is easily made vegan depending on the topping selected.
We have enjoyed it with proscuitto bits, stirfried shiitake mushrooms, or simply a drizzle of Sichuan Chili Crisp or Sriracha sauce on top.
Love2Chow Chinese Spinach and Silken Tofu Soup
5-8 oz (w) of trimmed spinach, washed well
14-17 oz (w) silken tofu
1 Tbs canola oil
3-4 oz (w) prosciutto bits or mushrooms cut into 1/4 inch cubes (optional)
1/2 Tbs Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
1 quart stock (chicken or vegetable)
3 Tbs cornstarch or potato starch dissolved in 4.5 Tbs of cold water
1 Tbs rendered chicken fat (optional)
Salt
Ground white pepper
1. Line up the spinach leaves and tender stems, roll up, and slice into the thinnest possible slivers. Cut the tofu into 1/4 inch cubes
2. Heat oil in a wok, Dutch oven or soup pot until it shimmers. Add proscuitto bits and/or mushroom cubes, if using, and allow to brown. Remove the bits to cool on a paper towel.
3. Stir in Shaoxing wine to deglaze the pan. Then add stock and tofu, bringing everything to a gentle boil.
4. Stir in spinach and return to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Re-stir the starch mixture until well mixed. Add 2-3 Tbs and stir in. The soup should quickly thicken. If necessary, add a Tbs at a time until the soup has a silky consistency and the bits of tofu and spinach are suspended.
6. Stir in chicken fat if using, and serve with prosciutto or other optional toppings.
Shortcut to the Love2Chow recipe.
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Recipe/content and photos ©2019, 2021. All Rights Reserved. Contact admin@love2chow.com for permissions.
Six years ago in June, I bought a beautiful hand-hammered carbon steel wok that completely changed my life. Over the prior year, I had been cooking my way through Grace Young's Stir-frying to the Sky's Edge with the support of a Facebook group called Wok Wednesdays. But truth be told, I was a wok skeptic until I actually tried using one, aided by her tips on technique. I now reach for one of my woks for almost every meal I make, whether Asian or not. And I have been paying attention to and researching what factors make a stove better or worse for stir-frying in a wok. It all boils down to geometry, power and distance. My kitchen remodel is centered around wok cooking and I can hardly wait for it to all be done!
Outdoor wokking on a propane powered Volcano Grill. For more on Szechuan green beans, click here. |
Chinese-Jamaican Stir-fried Beef and Carrots in Calypso sauce from Stir-frying to the Sky's Edge |
Spring rolls with homemade wrappers deep-fried in the wok. Click here for recipes. |
Long before I discovered the secrets to making dan dan noodles, lo mein or drunken noodles, I had clipped a recipe for Spicy Szechuan Noodles from a local neighborhood newspaper. This simple, but flexible and pleasing dish has been a family favorite since 2002. The kids call it Peanut Butter Noodles and it is fantastic served simply or with optional toppings. As it tastes equally good hot or at room temperature, a big bowl of these noodles disappears rapidly on the potluck or buffet table.
As my children were growing up, there have been a few one-pot dishes that stand out as favorites -- both for flavor and ease of preparation. The first are these scrumptious noodles coated with a light, peanut butter-sesame oil sauce, using ingredients readily found in our grocery store. The recipe for Spicy Szechuan Noodles by Chef Kelly was clipped from the North Journal Star in 2002, and modified for ease of preparation and to accommodate both a child that loves and a child that feared spicy foods.
Over the years, this dish has been a favorite with classmates and neighbors alike. Due to its make ahead nature, it frequently graced potluck tables at school picnics and neighborhood gatherings. Whether made as a double or triple batch, it always disappeared rapidly.
We have enjoyed this dish using a variety of noodles. It it fantastic with semolina or whole wheat spaghetti as well as dried Chinese noodles by Quon Yick Noodle in California, or fresh lo mein noodles. I have even made it using 1 and a half spaghetti squashes (roasted for 35-40 min in a 350°F convection oven).
While the original recipe included shredded chicken and toasted cashews, I have also served it with thin strips of ham and julienned cucumber or carrots. As time went on, we found ourselves eating the saucy noodles simply with some scallions on top.
We use bottled Szechuan sauce by Kame or Dynasty, which are carried in the Asian section of our local grocery store. However, I have included the original recipe at the bottom of this post should you wish to make your own chili sauce.
When my son became a teenager, he started making the dish when he got home from school. He noted that since he liked things extra saucy, he was deliberately sloppy with the measurements to add a bit more of everything. It was glorious to come home from a long day of work to find dinner waiting for me and my husband. Even my daughter, who has now grown to enjoy moderately spicy foods, told me that she liked my son's version better.
So he became the Peanut Butter noodle chef. I recently realized that we have not enjoyed these noodles much since he graduated high school. Instead, we occasionally enjoyed coming home to Tortellini with Smoked Salmon in a butter-cream-dill sauce, my daughter's favorite dish.
This week, I asked my husband to make the base noodle recipe, while I prepared toppings of shredded carrot, spicy stinky tofu and some miso-maple-glazed Chinese eggplant on the side for a vegan meal.
Love2Chow Peanut Butter Noodles (Spicy Szechuan Noodles) Serves 4.
Ingredients
8-10 oz dry spaghetti or Quon Yick noodles
Sauce
3 Tbs smooth peanut butter (Optional. See Note)
1 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs vinegar
1 Tbs sesame oil
2 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs sherry or rice wine
1 Tbs water
*1 Tbs Szechuan Sauce (or make your own)
1 tsp sugar
*2 cloves garlic, minced
*2 scallions, chopped
2 Tbs chopped cilantro (optional)
Optional toppings
6 oz (w) cooked chicken or ham, shredded or sliced
Cucumber, peeled and sliced into thin sticks
Shredded carrot
Wilted spinach
Thin slices of dry tofu or spicy tofu
Toasted sesame seeds, white or black
Black pepper or toasted Szechuan peppercorns to taste
1. Boil water and cook noodles per package directions
2. In a large bowl, mix the sauce ingredients from peanut butter to sugar until smooth. Stir in remaining sauce ingredients.
(If you are cooking for someone that is sensitive to spicy or strong flavors, hold off on adding the ingredients with asterisks.)
3. Drain hot noodles and immediately stir into the sauce.
(Remove the serving for the person that dislikes spicy foods, and then stir in the asterisked ingredients).
4. You can either serve the toppings on the side, or mix them right in.
Note: If you dislike peanut butter, the rest of the sauce ingredients are also delicious without it. The more traditional Chinese dish that this is based on uses Chinese sesame paste. You can use any combination of peanut butter, sesame paste or tahini, as long as the total is around 3-4 Tbs. Adjust thickness of sauce with water if necessary.
🐾 Note: If you dislike peanut butter, the rest of the sauce ingredients are also delicious without it. The traditional Chinese dish that this is based on uses Chinese sesame paste instead of peanut butter. You can use any combination of peanut butter, sesame paste or tahini, although we find including some peanut butter improves the texture. Adjust sauce thickness with water, if necessary.
DID YOU TRY THIS RECIPE?
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Tag @love2chowblog and hashtag it #love2chow
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All Rights Reserved. Contact admin@love2chow.com for permissions.
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