Sesame Shrimp Noodles
At my house dinner is exciting if Shrimp is an ingredient. While my entire family loves good Barbecue, grilled steaks etc - a dish with Shrimp in it is the pinnacle of goodness. Nothing makes shrimp more exciting than if I add the word “Asian” to the preparation. Around September of 1998, 22 years ago, I found a recipe in Sunset Magazine for Asian Angel Hair Pasta. I began making this dish for the family and everyone enjoyed it. But for my son Bryan this dish was his favorite and frequently was a special request for birthday dinners, a good report card or any excuse really. While I really liked the dish I found it lacking for a number of reasons. My primary issue with the dish was the sauce. While the sauce was tasty it was insufficient in flavor and it failed to “stick to” the noodles. Over the years I have adjusted the ingredients in the sauce. I combined ideas from other recipes with the original recipe out of Sunset Magazine and ended up with a “tried and true” version of the dish that I have dubbed “Sesame Shrimp Noodles”.
Start to finish this dish should only take about 20 minutes. This is an additional bonus of this dish because it is so tasty and can be on the table in no time. There are a number of ingredients however. Jump to the recipe to see the list. These ingredients are always on hand at my house because they are flavors my entire family enjoys. There are multiple uses for many of these ingredients such as fried rice, stir fry and other noodle dishes. I believe they are worth having on hand and they open up your options for new things to serve at dinnertime.
Some tips for making this dish:
Mix the sauce while your pasta water is coming to a boil. Have the sauce and the roasted nuts and chopped Cilantro and Green Onion ready to go.
Clean and “de-string” your snow peas. Just grab one end of the string at the end of the pea pod and pull it. The snow pea will stay together and they are tastier this way.
Be careful when cooking the pasta. You will be adding the shrimp and pea pods to the pasta in the final 2-3 minutes of cooking. Nothing worse that pasta that is over cooked. Your shrimp is done when they are pink and the snow peas are best if they are a little crisp.
Finally strain the pasta, shrimp and snow peas and put them in a bowl. Stir your sauce well and add it to the dish. You may not require all the sauce so add 2/3’s of it and keep adding until the dish is slick and the sauce is coated through out.
This dish is so fresh and tasty. I know you will enjoy it. Mangia!
