Peanut Sauce

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Shel - if you use the kind of peanut butter that is just peanuts, salt, and maybe a little oil, then yes. If you're into the sweet gakk, then no.

[Shel_B]

Shel - if you use the kind of peanut butter that is just peanuts, salt, and maybe a little oil, then yes. If you're into the sweet gakk, then no.

I use just peanuts, sometimes salted but most often not. I made the sauce last night and screwed it up. I transposed the peanut butter/coconut milk ratio, then tried to save it by adding more coconut milk, but I didn't have enough, so I added some water ... oh well, things like this are a "learning experience."

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Next time that happens, the Ecuadorian fix is pilsener-type lager and pureed carrots - this produces a sauce typical of coastal "secos" (meat stewed in light sauce) which is really really tasty with lamb or goat, and does amazing things to tough cuts of beef.

[Katie Meadow]

Staff note: This post and respnses to it have been moved here from the Dehydrated/Powdered Peanut Butter discussion, to maintain topic focus.

 

 

On 4/14/2024 at 9:21 PM, Shel_B said:

Thanks for all the suggestions for using this product.  I never thought about adding it to oatmeal ... sounds like a great idea.  I'll be picking up some of this product shortly and am looking forward to trying it.

 

I love spicy peanut noodles, and this certainly seems like it can somehow be used in such a dish.

If you like spicy peanut noodles you should try using Jade All Natural Sichuan Peanut Sauce. It's delicious! I make peanut noodles with it and also use it in stir-fry with chicken. It is indeed spicy. You can pick it up at the Bowl. 

[Shel_B]

On 4/16/2024 at 5:32 AM, Katie Meadow said:

If you like spicy peanut noodles you should try using Jade All Natural Sichuan Peanut Sauce. 

Thanks for the tip.  I'll see if it's on the shelf at BB when next I visit.  It would be nice to have a fallback.

 

I usually make my own peanut sauce based on Shorty Tang's version.  He was the chef/owner of Hwa Yuan Szechuan Inn, one of NYC Chinatown’s first Szechuan restaurants, back in the 1960s.

 

If you care to know more about Shorty Tang and his noodle creation, here's a link to more information, including Sam Sifton's version which is considered to be a fairly accurate rendition of Shorty's:

https://ny.eater.com/2011/11/2/6639857/a-family-history-of-shorty-tangs-cold-sesame-noodles

 

[Katie Meadow]

Thanks, @Shel_B for that. I grew up on the upper west side and my parents never ventured any further for Chinese food, so Tang is unknown to me. But the recipe sounds strange, to mix peanut butter with sesame paste. I've always had one or the other: sesame noodles or noodles with peanut sauce. 

 

Regular old American peanut butter shows up in all sorts of ersatz recipes for Americanized Chinese noodle dishes. And they never specify using natural peanut butter, so I have always assumed that people used Jif or Skippy, which have lots of sugar. Maybe @liuzhou has something to say about the use of peanut butter in Chinese food. There's a man who is never at a loss for words! 

[weinoo]

9 hours ago, Shel_B said:

I usually make my own peanut sauce based on Shorty Tang's version.  He was the chef/owner of Hwa Yuan Szechuan Inn, one of NYC Chinatown’s first Szechuan restaurants, back in the 1960s.

 

And the grandkids are much taller...http://www.shortytang.com/

[liuzhou]

36 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

Maybe @liuzhou has something to say about the use of peanut butter in Chinese food.

 

Not a lot.

 

It's not that common, but Skippy is available and there are Chinese brands, too. It is used in noodles sometimes, yes. However, the most common use here is in SE Asian style saté sauce and is used as a dip.

 

More here.

 

Here is a screen shot of a peanut and sesame sauce (with computer translation) from my local delivery app. First time I've  seen it!

 

 

 

Edited April 16 by liuzhou (log)

[Shel_B]

56 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

Thanks, @Shel_B for that. I grew up on the upper west side and my parents never ventured any further for Chinese food, so Tang is unknown to me. But the recipe sounds strange, to mix peanut butter with sesame paste. I've always had one or the other: sesame noodles or noodles with peanut sauce. 

I've been collecting and experimenting with this noodle dish since just before leaving NYC for Cali., in 1967, when I first sampled the dish at Shorty Tang's place. There are about thirty variations in the collection and roughly one third to one half of them have both peanut butter and sesame paste.  The dish goes by a variety of names and descriptions: Take-out Noodles, Dan Dan Noodles, Tan Tan Noodles, Sesame Noodles, and more.  It's never seemed strange to me having both sesame paste and peanut butter in the dish.

[liuzhou]

担担面 (dàn dàn miàn*) in Sichuan does not use peanut butter; it sometimes, but not always, uses sesame paste and is sometimes, but not always, garnished with raw peanuts. It is was originally a street food snack dish which with no standard recipe.

 

All the recipes I've seen in English are very American-Chinese with ingredients from all over China that would be unlikely to be used by street vendors in Sichuan if even available.

 

I’m reasonably certain peanut butter powder doesn’t exist in China; a search in Chinese on Chinese search engines reveals nothing.

 

* The official Mandarin transliteration in China. Tan Tan is just an older, outdated transliteration never used in China and now mainly only used in America