I made the most amazing, simple, and tasty dish this week using basic pantry ingredients. The idea for this dish came about earlier this week when I was craving some cheesy pasta. I only had about a third box of thin spaghetti left and cooked all of it thinking I wouldn’t have any leftover spaghetti, but I did. I ended up with about ½ cup of spaghetti leftover. Instead of wasting the leftover cooked spaghetti, I boxed it up into a small container to use for another day. The next day, after work, I was especially hungry, so I ended up just tossing the cold leftover spaghetti with a couple of sauces and some fresh cilantro. It was very simple and absolutely satisfying. The noodles tasted so good, I made the dish again a couple days later using ½ pound of thin spaghetti. The key to this tasty cold noodle dish is using Chiu Chow chili oil. A couple weeks ago, Kevin and I went to the local Asian market to pick up some fresh vegetables and ended up picking up a jar of Chiu Chow chili oil. Ever since then, I’ve been addicted to the chili oil and have been using it as a flavor enhancement for fried rice, noodles, and vegetable dishes. After tasting the Chiu Chow chili oil, I immediately fell in love with the authentic chili taste. The chili oil adds a spicy heat and deep chili flavor to fried rice and noodles. I even featured it as a star ingredient in a couple vegetable sides including chili oil green beans, and chili oil snow peas. It is definitely going to join our weeknight shortcut dinner rotation for the long term.
Chili Oil Cold Noodles:
· ½ pound of your favorite dry thin spaghetti
· 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
· ½ tablespoon Chiu Chow chili oil
· 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
· 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
· 1 teaspoon light brown sugar dissolved in 1 teaspoon hot water
· 10 sprigs fresh cilantro, stems removed
Directions:
1) Cook the spaghetti in a pot of heavily salted water following the instructions on the package of the spaghetti. Add a teaspoon of vegetable oil to the pot to prevent the noodles from sticking. Cool the spaghetti by running the spaghetti through cold water.
2) In a large bowl, combine the Chiu Chow chili oil, light soy sauce, sesame oil, and dissolved sugar. Add the noodles and fresh cilantro. Toss the noodles and cilantro in the sauce until the noodles are evenly coated in sauce.
Takeaways: You can use any thin noodles of your choice for this dish. I do realize running the spaghetti in cold water is not a traditional technique for cooking pasta, but for this specific dish, we want the noodles to be cold when served. You can achieve this by either running the noodles in cold water, cooling it in a bowl of ice, or chilling it in the refrigerator.