Open Sesame

Today's dinner with Rachael is Sesame Noodles, that I will be serving with a small side fruit salad.

Seems like a pretty straight forward meal, although I had to make a trip to the store of a few items.

Let's get right into it with the ingredients.....

1 pound cappellini(angel hair pasta.........ok, so i had some of this already, but it was stored in a pasta tin out of it's wrapper and I think it may have been there since Clinton was in the white house, so a fresh batch will have to be purchased)

1/4 cup soy sauce(this I have plenty of, I like to by authentic product from japan, so i shop from an online Asian grocer all the time. I cannot tell you the name of the brand of soy sauce, cause it is all written in Japanese, but the Japanese writing on the bottle looks like a elk with it's antlers all broken and lopsided. But for you the reader, any kind will probably do)

2 tablespoons tahini(had to look this up online to find out what in the hell this is......turns out it is sesame paste........and i will have to buy some)

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil(i actually have a small bottle of this. I was kind of surprised since I cannot remember ever using it before.........perhaps it was an impulse buy late one night at the grocers?)

2 pinches cayenne pepper(got it)

2 gloves garlic, minced(got it)

1 inch ginger root, peeled and grated or 2 pinches ground ginger(well I looked around and I got ginger coming out my ears in my kitchen. I got this stuff, candied, powered, dried, in root form, you name it and ginger wise, I got it)

3 scallions, thinly sliced on an angle(had to buy this, as I do not keep much of this stuff on hand. On a side note i did not think about the "cutting on an angle" piece of this, so I just chopped them up, I doubt it will make a difference)

1 large carrot, grated(bought one)

toasted sesame seeds for garnish(found a small packet of this at the store, was a little surprised they had them, but hey live and learn)

crushed red pepper flakes for garnish(got this on hand)

at this point, I should step back to note that, as I blog I normally have a cd playing, but tonight I left the tv on for background noise. I have just noticed that it is on some 80's teen angst film, not sure which one but from what I can tell John Cusack has determined that he loves the girl and the only way to fix whatever is wrong, is to stand in the rain holding a boombox over his head as peter gabriel plays................ah love, if it were only so simple in real life.

anyway back to the meal.

Put a pot of water over high heat, add salt and cook the pasta according to the package until al dente. Ok, this was easy to do, pasta I am fairly good at cooking.

meanwhile, combine soy sauce, tahini(sesame paste), sesame oil, cayenne, garlic and ginger root in a bowl. Whisk until smooth.

Drain the noodles and run under cold water until cooled.

Dump noodles into a large bowl with the sauce and combine until sauce is evenly distributed. add the carrots and scallions, toss to combine, then garnish with sesame seeds and pepper flakes.

The verdict:

Well to be honest, it took me a little more then 30 mins to make, but that is due to my getting pulled into that above mentioned teen angst film, otherwise, this could be made in less then 30 mins. As for the taste, I really enjoyed this one a lot. A rather light meal that would be a perfect lunchtime repast on a summers day.

On a side note, when you go to the store, ask for sesame paste instead of tahini. Trust me when I say, it will go better if you do.

until tomorrow.......