I like to take recipes that inspire me and adapt them to fit my mood or my available ingredients or preferably both!
So. Here we are. Today I have adapted a recipe from Bon Appetit, Shredded Chicken Breast And Noodle Salad. Find the original recipe here at Bon Appetit, a very inspiring and gorgeous magazine and website that I adore.
I didn't have udon. I didn't have chicken breast. I had thin pasta and steak that needed to be used up. I had fresh ginger that wouldn't stop begging me to eat it... I was torn between making a Vietnamese inspired noodle soup or this noodle salad. I have no idea why I settled on this one! But it is incredibly delicious and I'm very happy I did.
Here is my version of what happened:
Sesame Noodle Salad
Serves 2 very hungry people or 4 not as hungry people
| Kosher salt |
| 9 ounces enriched thin noodles |
| 3 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste) |
| 2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar |
| 1 tablespoon soy sauce |
| 1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper Knob of ginger, about 1 inch or to taste (optional) |
| 2 carrots, peeled, very thinly sliced |
| 1 cucumber, thinly sliced |
| 2 scallions, sliced or chopped to your liking |
| toasted sesame seeds to taste One steak about 1/2 lb., marinated for a few hours in red wine and herbs of your choice, or the protein of your choice. Tofu, chicken, or shrimp would all work fabulously here The very first thing I did was pop my steak into the freezer to make it easier to slice. It ended up chilling in there for about 20 minutes. I put a pot of water on high for my pasta and got started on the rest of my ingredients. I decided to slice the carrots and cucumber on my mandoline on the super thin slices setting, mostly because I love my mandoline and I love using it! You could certainly just as easily slice the veggies with a knife or even coarsely grate or chop them. You could also add or substitute any other veggies you have on hand, such as radish, onion, mushrooms, spinach, cabbage or anything else that strikes your fancy.  I whisked together the tahini, rice vinegar, and crushed red pepper in a small bowl until it was smooth and creamy in texture. Always taste your sauce and adjust seasoning. Be prepared to add a pinch of salt, a grind of pepper, a squeeze of citrus or a dash of hot sauce to your liking. Everyone's taste buds are a little different as are the contents of our kitchens! When the noodles were done to my liking (everyone seems to be in love with al dente but I personally prefer a slightly softer noodle. Go by the instructions on the package and your personal preference), I strained them and tossed them into a large bowl. I used a rubber spatula to scrape the sauce over the noodles and tossed to incorporate using tongs. At this point a crazy hankering for ginger came over me, so I grabbed a chunk and peeled it quickly with the tip of a spoon (ginger has a skin that it very easily scraped off with a spoon), then used my veg peeler to shave slices over my noodles. You could certainly use a grater, micro plane your maid, a coarse or fine chop, a julienne or anything else that seems convenient to achieve the same flavor. Or you could leave it out entirely. Also, you might consider tasting the noodles at this point and adjust seasoning again, for me this usually means I add more salt and/or begin eating plain salt by itself (I love salt way too much to be considered healthy). I filled up a bowl with the noodles and crammed the top of the bowl with some of my veggies (I was eating alone tonight so I put the remaining noodles, veggies, and meat in a container in the refrigerator for lunch tomorrow). I sliced my chilled steak across the grain and tossed it with the hot noodles just enough to cook it a tiny bit (I love my steak so rare that my boyfriend and many friends of mine call me The Vampire. Also because I rarely show my face during daylight hours. Hey I'm a bartender! I have to be up all night 6 days a week. Daytime is for sleeping and doing laundry). If you are not like me and don't care to eat a very rare piece of meat, I suggest you cook whatever protein you are using while your noodles are cooking. If you happen to have some shrimp on hand (I like to keep a pound or two in the freezer for a quick meal)you could toss it into your boiling pasta water a few minutes before your pasta was done and simply drain it and coat it with sauce right along with your pasta. For that matter you could do the same thing with thinly sliced steak or cubes of tofu or even edemame. You could also skip the protein all together for a lighter salad, perhaps lunch or an appetizer. As you can see I'm into tweaking my cooking depending on what's available, my mood, the color of the light outside, or easily a million other factors. I encourage you all to do the same and get creative with it. The worst thing that could possibly happen is you ruin your dish and order a pizza. No problem. Plus that is extremely unlikely... most food is harder to ruin than most people might imagine, especially if you taste as you go. Anyway, after I added my beautifully rare steak slices I used my fabulous kitchen scissors to slice two scallions right over the top of everything. I then added a generous pinch of toasted sesame seeds as well. At this point, to be completely honest, I returned to my habitat (which was in this case my living room floor leaning on my oversized white stuffed tiger) and dug in. Really easy simple dish with a lot of great flavors. Not very spicy so if you're a heat lover like me I suggest you either amp up the crushed red pepper or simply smother your dish with Sriracha (see a fabulous recipe for a home made version here at the beautiful blog Reclaiming Provincial). Thanks for reading my first ever post on my brand new blog! Please leave me your comments, feedback, ideas, insults, or anything else you'd like. Try Some!  |
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