Sesame Noodles for Chinese New Year

PhotobucketGung Hay Fat Choy!

It’s Chinese New Year!  The year of the Dragon!

We started our Chinese New Year festivities with a potluck play date at the park with our friends.  Everyone brought a Chinese entrée to share and everything so delicious.  We had dumplings, doughnuts, a variety of noodles, fried rice, orange chicken and of course fortune cookies.

Emmalynn insisted on wearing her Mulan costume for the occasion.

The kids decorated dragon masks and made lanterns, which Allana loved almost as much as the dumplings.

For the potluck portion of the program, I brought Sesame Noodles to share.  This dish is so simple and tasty served either warm or cold as a side dish or a main entrée.

The Rachel Ray recipe I use calls for angel hair pasta but I prefer spaghetti for this dish, so I sent hubby to the store to buy the ingredients for me.  He returned with spaghetti rigataUm…ok! At least it wasn’t linguini!  Actually, hubby’s mistake worked perfectly because spaghetti rigata noodles are square and resemble lo mein noodles.  (This is where Iron Chef Allan would chime in to tell me that was his intention all along.)

 

Sesame Noodles

(Adapted from Classic Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals)

Ingredients

1 pound capellini (angle hair) or spaghetti rigatta

¼ cup low-sodium soy sauce

2 Tbsp tahini

2 Tbsp toasted sesame seed oil

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 inch gingerroot, peeled and grated or ½ tsp ground ginger

3 scallions, chopped

1 large carrot, grated

Toasted sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

Crushed red pepper flakes for garnish (optional)

Directions

Bring a large stock pot of salted water to a rolling boil and then add pasta.  Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine soy sauce, tahini, sesame oil, cayenne, garlic and ginger.  Whisk until smooth.

Drain pasta and immediately chill in a large bowl of ice water to blanch pasta and prevent further cooking.

Drain and dump chilled pasta into bowl with sauce and combine until noodles are evenly coated.  Add veggies and toss to combine.

Serve in soup bowls garnished with some extra sliced greens of scallions, sesame seeds and a little crushed red pepper.

Thanks for joining our weekly Friday Food Fight.  Link up and see what everyone else is flinging this week.  



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24 comments

  1. mominhighheels says:

    What a fun thing to do. And YUM on the noodles! Looks delicious! I love Chinese. Interestingly, the best Chinese food we’ve ever had has been here in Germany. There is a large Chinese population here (I wonder why?) and their restaurants are amazing. The food is apparently more “authentic” (?) compared to the Americanized version at restaurants in the States. I wasn’t aware you could Americanize Chinese, but whatever. No one over here has the awesome little fried donuts covered in sugar. I don’t care if that’s Americanized Chinese or not. They’re delicious and I want some.
    Thanks for stopping by my blog! Come on over any time. I’m hilarious (I keep telling my readers this anyway), but I’ve especially got my groove on on Tuesdays. Have a great day!

  2. Lisa~~ says:

    Happy Year of the Dragon!!! 新年快樂 Thanks for visiting Cook Lisa Cook and for the invite to link up. We adore sesame noodles yet haven’t made them in ages…need to remedy that and have them soon. Love seeing the other recipes in the hop.

  3. Michelle says:

    This entire post is so colorful with the mask, costume, and sesame noodle dish. Very fun.
    Thanks for inviting me to the fight!
    I host a potluck link up called See Ya In the Gumbo. It starts on Sunday nights and runs through Friday nights. Would love for you to join in.

  4. Cheerful says:

    great way to welcome the year of the water dragon and having noodles is nice to have on the table! that looks really delicious and thanks for sharing your recipe. visiting from FTF, see you around. 🙂

  5. Bibi says:

    What a pretty little geisha…..we usually ski on Fridays, but we did celebrate Chinese New Year with a take-out from our favorite Chinese restaurant….I used to love to partake in Chinese New Year celebration when we lived in Vancouver. I do miss it.

  6. Jessica Cassidy says:

    the noodles looks very delish 🙂 I love anything that has noodles. Your little girl is so adorable. Looks cute in her costume too. Thank you for sharing. Visiting from FTF, hope that you can return the visit too.

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