Peanut Sauce with Ginger, Lime, and Cilantro

[monksandbones]

This is one of my staple recipes, and after pouring it on some noodles and veggies, taking it for lunch, and having my office-mate comment on its delicious smell for the nth day in a row, it occurred to me that other people might enjoy it too.

It comes from the excellent, mostly-vegetarian cookbook of the mostly-vegetarian restaurant ReBar in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada:

Audrey Alsterberg and Wanda Urbanowicz, ReBar: Modern Food Cookbook (Victoria, BC, 2001), p. 40.

The sauce is vegetarian, easily made vegan, potentially gluten-free with gluten-free soy sauce and, if you have some kind of kitchen appliance with whirling blades (a blender by preference, but a hand/immersion blender or food processor would probably also work), takes very little chopping or mixing. It's also possible to mix it up by hand, but that requires a lot more careful mincing of things.



1/4 cup (60 mL) smooth, natural peanut butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp (15 mL) minced ginger
2 tbsp (30 mL) honey, or brown sugar for a vegan version
1/4 cup (60 mL) minced cilantro leaves
juice of 1 lime, or 1–2 tbsp/15–30 mL bottled lime or lemon juice
1 tbsp (15 mL) sesame oil
1 tsp (5 mL) sambal oelek, or more if you like a spicier sauce
1/4 cup (60 mL) soy sauce
2 tbsp (30 mL) rice wine vinegar




The actual recipe directs you to put the garlic, ginger, honey, cilantro, lime juice, sesame oil, and sambal oelek in the blender and blend until smooth, adding the remaining ingredients afterwards and blending everything again.

I have never actually done this. I put everything in the blender, blend it for as long as seems good to me, and declare it done. Sometimes I don't bother to mince the garlic, ginger, or cilantro either, and it comes out fine (although in order to avoid large unblended chunks of garlic and ginger, I recommend at least slicing it or roughly chopping it).

My favorite way to eat this is mixed into rice noodles and stir-fried or steamed vegetables. I usually toss the cooked noodles and vegetables in the sauce. The heat neutralizes the pungency of the garlic, although the sauce doesn't need to be cooked at all. It's also a delicious sauce for wraps!

Comments

[anatsuno]

oh man that sounds so good. thank you!