Cold Sesame Noodles

Noodles rinsed cold and turned through a loosened sesame paste sauce.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 250 g fresh wheat noodles
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 cucumber, cut into matchsticks

Sauce

• 3 tablespoons sesame paste
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon black vinegar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste
• 4 to 6 tablespoons warm water
• 1 teaspoon chilli oil

Method

1. Put the sesame paste in a bowl and add the warm water one tablespoon at a time, stirring hard after each. It will seize and go stiff before it loosens — keep going and it comes back to a pouring cream.
2. Stir in the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, garlic and chilli oil. Taste it and adjust: it should be sharper than you expect, because the noodles will mute it.
3. Boil the noodles until just tender, then drain them and rinse under cold running water until they are cold all through. Warm noodles will drink the sauce and go pasty.
4. Shake them as dry as you can and toss them with the teaspoon of sesame oil, which stops them clumping while you finish.
5. Pour the sauce over, turn the noodles through it until every strand is coated, and top with the cucumber.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes