台式凉面 Taiwan Style Cold Sesame Noodles

This is a delicious cold sesame noodle dish. This is both a popular street food and home cooked dish in Taiwan. When I lived in Taiwan I would often grab cold sesame noodle out of the fridge at 7-Eleven for a quick and delicious lunch. The one at seven eleven came with two sauce packets- a sesame sauce and a sweetened vinegar sauce like you see in the photo below. In home cooked recipes all ingredients are just mixed into one sauce.

Image was found on this blog.

When my husband lived in Taiwan he never did have it from 7-eleven but he often got it from street vendors. Street vendors offer a variety of toppings such as shredded omelet, julienned cucumber and carrot, crushed peanuts, sesame seeds, chili oil, shredded chicken, cilantro etc.  Have fun with it. You can also keep it simple with just the basic cucumber and peanuts/sesame seeds. It really depends on what you are in the mood for. Below is a picture of a street food vendor in Taiwan selling cold sesame noodles. She has two to-go boxes ready full of noodles and I can imagine she is asking, "What toppings would you like?" For those of you who have been to Taiwan, what were your favorite toppings to get? and did you most often get it at street vendors, 7-eleven or else where? Please share!

Image was found on this blog. 

If you are unable to find sesame paste in your area peanut butter can be substituted. But you will want to make some modification to the recipe if using peanut butter. Sesame paste is much thinner than peanut butter. See the photo below (this is sesame paste at room temperature).

So if using peanut butter you will want to add a little oil at a time until you get a thickness that runs of the spoon in an even stream and thinly coats the spoon as shown in the photo.

Also most peanut butters, unless you are using natural have added sugar where sesame paste does not so you will need to adjust the sugar in the recipe according to taste. Happy experimenting!

I am pregnant again. Three babies in three years, it has been busy. I have a two and a half year old and a 11 month old, Jada and Makayla. I have been craving a lot of the foods from my days in Taiwan so this blog is about to have a burst of Taiwanese recipes. This is a basic recipe to give you an idea of the porportions of toppings to noodles to sauce that you want but feel free to switch up topping and add or take away according to your own preference. 

1 serving thin wheat noodles (spaghetti size)
1/3 cup julienned cucumber
1/3 cup julienned carrot (optional)
1/4 cup chopped peanuts
1/3 cup shredded chicken (optional)
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro (optional)

Sauce:
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 tsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. sesame oil
4 tsp. sesame paste
2 tsp. rice vinegar
1 tsp. oil (use chili oil for a spicier version)
4 tsp. sugar

Cook noodles then run under cold water.
Mix together sauce ingredients and then prepare the vegetables, nuts and meat. Mix sauce into noodles and garnish with vegetables, nuts and meat or mix in. You can let it rest for 1/2 hour or so to marinate or eat immediately, both ways are good.