Last night I prepared a recipe that I found from Alton Brown on Good Eats. The recipe is called “Dan Dan Noodles” and is a snap to put together. Here’s a copy of the recipe for those who would like to make it as well:

Dan Dan Noodles
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2011

Prep Time:30 min
Cook Time:1 min

Level: Easy
Serves: 4 servings

Ingredients

* 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
* 4 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
* 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
* 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
* 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
* 1 tablespoon Chinese black vinegar
* 1 tablespoon chili oil
* 1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
* 8 ounces ramen noodles
* 1/2 cup roasted peanuts, chopped
* 3 scallions, finely chopped

Directions
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Place the peanut butter, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, black vinegar, and chili oil into the bowl of a mini-food processor. Process until the mixture is well combined and forms a paste, 1 to 2 minutes. With the processor running, gradually add the chicken broth and process until the sauce is creamy and well combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a large    mixing bowl, cover, and set aside while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Place 4 quarts water into a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the noodles and cook until al-dente, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Drain thoroughly in a colander. Add the noodles to the bowl with the sauce and toss to combine. Serve topped with the peanuts and scallions.

Copyright 2011 Television Food Network G.P., All Rights Reserved
Printed from FoodNetwork.com on Sun May 08 2011© 2011 Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved

We did however make some substitutions which proved to work just as well as the original ingredient list. Instead of Chinese Black Vinegar we substituted that out for Teriyaki Sauce because the two share a similar nose if not taste. I suspect they are very similar so I’m not going to really fret over the replacement. It’s much easier to find Teriyaki than it is Chinese Black Vinegar, especially when you are visiting somewhere else and you don’t want to leave a “this ingredient is just for this one recipe” behind. We also dropped the scalions because the market we went to didn’t have any, so we swapped them out for shallots. Raw shallot has a much stronger taste than raw scalions do and I found it’s boldness to be a very welcome enhancement to the recipe.

One thing that is nice about this recipe is it’s modularity. There are originally two modules to this recipe, the sauce and the noodles. When you want to add a protein it’s just another module that you add to it. In our case, we added shrimp to the meal and that was a delightful addition. The sauce part of the recipe can be modified to work to over any other kind of dish you’d like to make. The Dan Dan Sauce is very good over poached Chicken, over gently steamed broccoli, or even sticky white rice.

If you try this recipe, please let me know how it goes for you. It’s one of our favorites.