This is my only legit family recipe, I think. Something my dad flung together a couple of times and I asked to learn, and which I then made for myself and others from the age of, what, 14 or so?
Props to Richard Farquhar for forcing me to add tabasco sauce that one time. That was one of many adaptations and refinements that took place over the years.
And hey, I know the whole "story" thing for recipes sucks, but this really was my gateway proper cooking. We don't use salt because the soy and nam pla provide that; the physics of how starch molecules behave; timing two different strands of a recipe; sensibly improvising when you don't have exactly what you want; cooking for others and having it appreciated… I really have a relationship with this one.
Ingredients
Serves 2 adults or 1 adult and two kids
- Medium egg noodles: 1 "block" per person, or more for a greedy person.
Sauce
- 200ml water
- 1tbsp soy sauce
- 1tbsp nam pla
- 30g creamed coconut
- half a veg stock cube
- largish pince of sugar
- 1-2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- clove garlic crushed
- dash of Tabasco sauce
- tsp sesame oil
Method
The noodles need to go into boiling water for 4 minutes. When you do this in relation to the sauce is up to you and how confident you are with your ingredients and timings. When you've been making it for 30 years the whole thing can come together in 5 mins.
For the sauce:
- put 200ml of water in a small pan on a high heat
- add half a vegetable stock cube
- add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
- add 1 tablespoon of fish sauce / nam pla
- add 30g of creamed coconut
- add 1 tablespoon of smooth peanut butter
- add a big pince of sugar
- add a crushed clove of garlic
- add a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
- add 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
- add a dash (or two) of Tabasco sauce
Notes
Pretty much everything here is negotiable. You can use chicken stock, oyster sauce, coconut milk, crunchy PB (😒), garlic powder / garlic granules, fresh tomatoes / pasata, cholula…
It's more of a vibe than a recipe: a kinda satay peanut sauce, basically, with some coconut and a touch of heat. This is just my canonical version.
The order you add stuff doesn't really matter either, but here are my observations:
- add anything that needs to dissolve (sugar, stock cube, coconut, early on before the Pb and puree)
- the PB needs a good hard boil to break up its starch chains and thicken the sauce. I used to add it early, but these days it goes in later so I can better judge its proportion to the rest of the ingredients
- the later you add garlic the stronger the flavour apparently, so defer that if you only have one old, shrivelled clove on hand
- a glass of cold semi-skimmed milk is the perfect beverage to accompany this meal, FYI