Henk Hardendood wrote:
Try : http://www.indochef.com/page05.html
Indonesian peanut sauce.
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Visit www.indochef.com
Looks good, but not what most posters call "easy", i.e. fast. Below is a
repost of what could be called "My Life With Peanut Sauce". I was "tj"
back then, and my husband, now ex, of 10 years was "TJ" or "TJ the
Tall". I am reminded, reading this, of how much I miss my past, and how
embittered I am that he has recently taken a trip to France with my
ex-best friend, the trip he wouldn't take with me because he thought the
French elitist, but one cannot let sorrow detain you posting your
hard-won culinary experiance. Recipes at the bottom, if you want to skip
the (cheery) narrative.
blacksalt
begin paste
Perhaps only the gastronomic perverts of the world would find themselves
in our position, but TJ the Tall and I have painted ourselves into a
corner over peanut sauce. The first stroke of our strangling paint brush
was a hole in the wall Chinese joint (now gone) at 108th ?? and Broadway
in NYC. Everyone called it "Setch West", and the only dish that really
sang was their sesame-peanut sauce and udon-type noodles, with slivers
of cuck and rings of scallions on top. It was jammed with Columbia U.
students, and we had a habit, once of month, of driving down from the
wilds of the Bronx and splitting as many as 5 servings between the two
of us.
The search, of course, was on for the recipe, and the restaurant was
unresponsive to our pleas. The autopsies came next. We strained the
sauce, gummed the sauce, I even looked at it under the microscope to see
if there was any ground vegetable material. I had no leads. It was
homogeneous paste of non-discript colour, but it had wings on the
tongue.
One day, some years later, TJ the tall, who made every peanut sauce
recipe I could find, came upon not the same recipe, but one that was
just as superlative. Unfortunately, he is a poor documentarian, and
given to taking liberties, and we NEVER COULD FIND THIS RECIPE AGAIN. Of
course we scanned every book I own. I just did so again. I fear we were
dosed with magic mushrooms and dreamed the whole thing. For a while he
made peanut sauce every weekend. I grew listless, and he abandoned his
passion.
Two years ago or so, at the Tacoma cook-in, he again rose up in the
kitchen and cranked out two different but very passable peanut sauces.
The secret of these is lost forever on me, as he barely seems to scan a
recipe, and concentrates on multiple adjustments of the final product,
and getting every measuring device and bowl in the kitchen sticky and
grubby.
This is not TV, and I cannot go on to tell you about meeting an elderly
but photogenic Chinese cook who reveals all just before the credits, the
crux being an ancient grinding stone that imparts the perfect flavour.
Instead, I will give a couple rules of thumb we have learned, and the
most recent recipes TJ the Tall made that didn't make us both tear up
with disappointment.
1) Don't make it too thick. As it sits, it will get thicker.
2) Don't overdue lime or lime-peel, as its taste will grow more
pervasive with time. If you use lime, and feel the sauce needs some
kick, and you've reached the dose in the recipe, add a couple drops of
chinese vinegar instead.
3) If you get a wild idea about adding ground galangal, etc, try adding
a snippet to a spoonful, and tasting THAT first, instead of adding it to
the whole bowl.
4) Puree well. Don't, however, break your machine by putting in the
peanut butter first. Add the liquids, and then start adding the peanut
butter. The first bit of liquid that is added to peanut butter does not
loosen it, but emulsifies the oil (I'm guessing here) and makes
spackling putty out of it.
5) We use unsalted unaltered peanut butter, not Jiffy.
6) Always have a bit of veggie in the dish....scallions, cucks, mung
bean sprouts. The palate craves a shot of moisture while masticating
peanut sauce.
7) we try to add the stock while it's hot.
From Moosewood Cooks At Home:
2 T fresh lime juice
1 T fresh lime peel (we cut back on this pronto)
1/2 Cup peanut butter
2 teas brown sugar
1 cup veggie stock
1/2 teas salt
3 cloves garlic minced
Now then, more chinesey sauces would use soysauce and rice or perhaps
dark vinegar instead of the lime and salt. We also always add a bit of
ginger, without any fibers of course. WE also tend to add minced
chilipepper, but that's us. We have used no citrus, but pineapple juice
instead of veggie stock, in a recipe with LOTS of fire. I am partial to
minced shallots being added. If you want to use soy sauce, but desire a
light coloured product, use USU KUCHI soy sauce, made by kikkomen. We
put two parts peanut butter and on part sesame paste when we go the
soysauce/rice vinegar route. Also, as both of us like eat lots of food,
and therefore dislike rich food that prevents several more courses being
craved, we tend to make our sauce strong with garlic, peppers, etc, and
use less of it on the noodles.
Here is another that has been a spring-board for some good ones:
(From "From the Earth")
5 T veggie stock
1 teas sesame paste
3 T peanut butter
2 teas rice vinegar
2 T mushroom soy sauce
1 1/2 teas red pepper flakes from the bottom of a pan of making pepper
oil by heating peanut oil very hot and throwing in hot pepper flakes and
leaving them soak over night (I do the throwing outdoors to prevent
throat spasms in both me and the cat)
1 T sugar
white pepper to taste
2 T minced white of scallions
Garnish dish with fresh coriander leaves.
tj
who can't want for TJ the Tall to come home from being the designated
driver at a week-long bachelor bash in Florida, as she is sure he will
arrive full of cravings and ideas for Cuban food.