Cold Peanut Sesame Noodles

Here's the finished product:

When I was little, we used to get Chinese food very infrequently, so it carries special memories. Always from a place called Uncle Lee's. I wonder if it's still there? The two dishes I have the fondest memories of are dumplings, and cold peanut sesame noodles. I haven't found a good place here to get the noodles, so I figured I'd try making them.

The sauce takes a bit of effort, and has to be made ahead of time so it can refrigerate, but it's worth the time. We couldn't find the Ma La sauce, but it was fine without it, but perhaps without a spicy kick you crave. I added some carrots in addition to cucumbers for a little more veggies in it. I steamed the carrots a little bit, so they were crunchy, but not quite raw. I was going to add edamame for protein, but we couldn't find any, so this was a low protein meal (besides the peanut butter in the sauce).

The recipe calls for Chinese egg noodles, which are kind of spaghetti shaped, but husband couldn't find them and got Manischewitz egg noodles, which are wider and flatter, meant for things like noodle kugel, but they worked out ok. I'm not sure if it would have been better to get regular spaghetti to have the right shape of noodles, or if it's better to use egg noodles for the flavor... but again, it worked out fine.

I made a little extra sauce, because I like things saucy, but it was unnecessary. We ended up with leftover sauce. I used it to make a similar dish with bowtie noodles, chicken, and broccoli (also good).

I think this one was REALLY good. Husband agreed. Had seconds, and licked sauce. Baby didn't care for it at all (oh well, more for us).

making tahini for the peanut sauce. It's really easy, just sesame seeds and olive oil. You can add salt, but since the peanut sauce has soy sauce in it, I figured more salt is unnecessary.

blending up the sauce. I used a vitamix and blended it pretty intensely in order to get the larger ingredients fully incorporated (e.g. the shallots), the sauce turned out very smooth, as it's supposed to