Cold Noodles with Sesame Sauce

[donwals x]

having a lot of trouble getting mine to taste like the ones at restaurants.

[Michelle Ng x]

What kind of sesame are you using? Mistake number one here is using Middle Eastern style tahini. Is yours from an Asian market?

[Gil Shamir x]

Actually I use israeli tahini (being Israeli I keep this stuff at home all the time) blended with sesame seeds, peanut oil and some peanut butter and hot chili oil with some chopped up chilis and the results are pretty good.

[Michelle Ng x]

There's a difference between good and authentic. The Asian sesame pastes have their own flavor that makes them different, not better or worse, but different than the Middle Eastern ones. Asian sesame pastes are made from toasted seeds, Middle Eastern ones are made from raw seeds. You can pretty easily taste the difference between sauces made with one or the other.

[Preet Baba x]

Arthur Schwartz wrote a column on sesame noodles (http://www.thefoodmaven.com/cgi-bin/diary99.cgi?a=19&t=article.html) on his Web site. He uses peanut butter and sesame paste interchangably, which seems odd, though. Versions of that dish made with peanut butter don't taste right to me. I know they have peanuts in China of course but the peanut butter taste comes across as Americanized. Maybe it would be different were pure peanut butter used instead of processed. I don't know. Also good sesame overview (http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa051701a.htm) on About.com.

(Edited by Preet Baba at 7:09 pm on July 22, 2001)

[Emily x]

Are sesame and peanut plants related in some way? Strange they would taste so similar.

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Emily Rose, rosemily@hotmail.com

[Jon Marcus x]

Not at all unusual for unrelated plants to taste similar. Look at fennel and anise or how wine smells like all these things that aren't grapes. The tastes you find in nature can pop up anywhere. No they are not botanically related except insofar as they are both plants.

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Jon Marcus

jonathan-marcus@excite.com

[jhlurie x]

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Quote: from Preet Baba on 7:08 pm on July 22, 2001

Arthur Schwartz wrote a column on sesame noodles on his Web site. He uses peanut butter and sesame paste interchangably, which seems odd, though. Versions of that dish made with peanut butter don't taste right to me. I know they have peanuts in China of course but the peanut butter taste comes across as Americanized. Maybe it would be different were pure peanut butter used instead of processed. I don't know. Also good sesame overview on About.com.

(Edited by Preet Baba at 7:09 pm on July 22, 2001)

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I'm a big fan of both cold sesame noodles and warm noodles in peanut sauce.  But the idea of either warm sesame or cold peanut noodles.  Yuck.  

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[Jon Marcus x]

An unusual differentiation. Can you explain it?

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Jon Marcus

jonathan-marcus@excite.com

[jhlurie x]

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Quote: from Jon Marcus on 11:59 pm on July 23, 2001

An unusual differentiation. Can you explain it?

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A good warm peanut sauce has a certain... feeling in your mouth, a texture.  Cold I don't really think it feels the same.  Sesame, on the other hand (at least to ME) tastes pretty good chilled.  

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[Michelle Ng x]

Are you operating with the assumption that one type of sauce is thicker than the other? Because you can adjust either to be thick or thin.

[stefanyb x]

I've made noodles with sesame paste many times as well as hacked chicken which is essentially cold poached chicken with the same sauce.  Peanut butter is used in American Chinese restaurants most of the time but I think Asian sesame paste is better.  Also, thinning the sesame paste with cooled brewed oolong tea is a great enhancer of the dish and a garnish of jullienned cucumber adds a certain clean flavor.

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drzarkov2@aol.com

[Stone]

Can someone send me a good recipe? This is another dish that I loved in NY and can't find a decent example in San Francisco. (I can't even begin to describe how disgusting they make it out here.) I actually wrote my favorite restaurant in NY and begged for the recipe, but they ignored me.

Please!

[bleudauvergne]

Hi Stone, I recently joined, and have a cold, so happened upon this thread. I do have a pretty good recipe from Chinese Gastronomy. I can't say it's like what you got in New York, but I can say it tastes exactly like what I used to get in Beijing.

Sesame Peanut Sauce

2 Tb. sesame seed

1 lb. bean sprouts

1 Tb. peeled and slivered ginger

oil

3/4 tsp. sugar

1 Tb. sesame oil

4 tsp. peanut butter

4 Tb. water

2 Tb. soy sauce

2 tsp. chinese (the dark brown kind) vinegar

1/2 tsp. red pepper oil

2 tsp. sugar 2 tsp msg optional

1/2 tsp black pepper

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry burner until brown. set aside.

Blanch bean sprouts, drain, and set aside.

Marinate ginger with sugar and 1 tsp oil for a few hours, or a few days...

Mix one Tb. oil with sesame oil, peanut butter, toasted sesame seed, until well blended. Don't do this in the blender because the seed should remain whole. Incorporate remaining ingredients.

Place cold noodles on platter, pour sauce over them, and mix lightly with chopsticks. Place beansprouts over and sprinkle with marinated ginger.

I have done with without the sprouts for a quick fix when craving this dish. Guests like it in small portions as a starter.

- Lucy

[ludja]

Can someone send me a good recipe? This is another dish that I loved in NY and can't find a decent example in San Francisco.

Having a recipe is better than a restaurant, but have you tried the DanDan Mein at Brandy Ho's Hunan Cuisine on Colombus? I do know if it is the style you are used to but I find them to be very good-and the best out of what I 've tasted. (Great texture on the noodles in addition to the sauce).

I've not had tons of success with a few different recipes I've tried at home. Maybe time to try bleudauvergne's recipe. Thanks for it!

[tissue]

I've made noodles with sesame paste many times as well as hacked chicken which is essentially cold poached chicken with the same sauce.  Peanut butter is used in American Chinese restaurants most of the time but I think Asian sesame paste is better.  Also, thinning the sesame paste with cooled brewed oolong tea is a great enhancer of the dish and a garnish of jullienned cucumber adds a certain clean flavor.<p>-----

drzarkov2@aol.com

Don't forget the chili oil.

[jo-mel]

When cold sesame noodles first started to become noticed, most people in the NYCity area pointed to a Chinatown restaurant as having the best. (Yuan Hua/ Hua Yuan??) It was a Sichuan place, the usual linoleum floor, no decor --- but great food kind of place. This was back in the 70s?

Well, their noodles, which were wonderful, had a simple clear sauce -- no sign of either seame paste or peanut butter. When I examined them closely, the only things I could detect were sesame oil, chicken broth and scallions. There may have been other seasonings, but they weren't openly apparent, and not at all the creamy sauce that I find and see in recipes and other restaurants.

They were cold, glistening and wonderful! The last word in Sesame noodles. Unfortunately, They wouldn't give away their secret and hav since closed.

[bleudauvergne]

jo-mel, so sorry to hear that your favorite noodle place closed without sharing their recipe. However you will one day re-create it. Keep asking around and keep trying them. Have faith.

[Ben Hong]

bleudauvergne: that is a nice handle. The only thing that I can guess is that it is the name of a french hunting dog, sometimes called a braque d'auvergne. There is a "blue" type which is in reality all black. Am I right???

[mnebergall]

When cold sesame noodles first started to become noticed, most people in the NYCity area pointed to a Chinatown restaurant as having the best. (Yuan Hua/ Hua Yuan??) It was a Sichuan place, the usual linoleum floor, no decor --- but great food kind of place. This was back in the 70s?

Well, their noodles, which were wonderful, had a simple clear sauce -- no sign of either seame paste or peanut butter. When I examined them closely, the only things I could detect were sesame oil, chicken broth and scallions. There may have been other seasonings, but they weren't openly apparent, and not at all the creamy sauce that I find and see in recipes and other restaurants.

They were cold, glistening and wonderful! The last word in Sesame noodles. Unfortunately, They wouldn't give away their secret and hav since closed.

The Hua Yuan was a favorite of mine when I was a poor law student at NYU in the early 80's. My classmates and I made periodic pilgrimages to the Hua Yuan. I have fond memories of their cold sesame noodles. Everything they had there was great. I can remember, now 20+ years later.