It seems weird to me to think that not to long ago, there were no such things as peanuts.
I don’t mean that they didn’t exist, of course. I just mean that, until 1921 when Teddy Roosevelt made George Washington Carver’s work famous, people in America thought they were a pretty useless weed. And it took even longer for people to not only figure out they weren’t, but to make peanut stuff: peanut butter, peanut butter cookies, peanut oil, and most importantly, peanut sauce.
Now, strangely enough, peanut sauce seems to be a staple in Thai cuisine, which is confusing to me. Especially since peanuts were brought over to China in the 1600’s as a crop. This conflicts greatly with my elementary school history education, since weren’t we supposed to be mystified by this little legume’s delicious properties? So why would we bring a weed to China? And how did it then move down and become so popular in Indonesia and Thailand?
Frankly, I don’t care who “invented” it. I would like to take them out to dinner and maybe a movie afterward. I would like to take them behind a middle school and get them pregnant. (30 Rock reference, anybody? I swear I’m not actually that creepy.) But though I crave peanut butter sometimes, I can’t stand what I call “peanut butter mouth”, that sticky sensation that leaves you smacking your tongue like a dissatisfied cat and wishing for a giant, cold beverage. But still, I yearned for peanut butter, and there are only so many times I could eat peanut butter cookies and not get fat. And then I hit upon the solution: peanut sauce.
Because peanut sauce, assuming you don’t have a peanut allergy, goes well on everything. Marinate tofu in it (or, well, anything, but tofu retains it nicely). Put it on rice with some chopped up vegetables and you have yourself a meal. Use it on grilled meats. Dip shrimp in it. Put it on pasta instead of oil to keep it from sticking. Use it as a salad dressing. I think, personally, you could tweak it a little and put it on vanilla ice cream, but I’m crazy like that.
What I’ve used it most recently on is the abundance of sugar-snap peas that have exploded from our garden since the near-constant month of rain we’ve recently had in Boston. The peanut peas with sesame seeds (got to come up with a better name for that) were a pretty big hit at our July 4 barbecue. By which I mean that I was not the only one scarfing it down. It’s a sure-fire, kid-friendly side dish that’s perfect for summer. There is no cooking required, sugar snap peas are in season (and often available at farmer’s markets locally grown — huzzah, environmentally-conscious food!), and if you, like my family, grow sugar-snap peas, it’s perfect for that abundance you’re going to find yourself facing right about … now.
Easy Asian Peas
Print This Recipe
(serves 6-8 as a side dish)
Clean and halve the peas (I suggest doing this on the couch, with your feet up, while watching television. I watched the Dogs 101 marathon on Animal Planet and I firmly believe that the puppies on my screen made this taste better by cute osmosis). Place in large bowl/whatever you plan on serving in.
In a small, separate bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, water, sesame oil, soy sauce, honey, and black pepper until smooth. The whisking should go in three distinctive stages:
The point being: keep whisking.
Pour sauce over peas, mix until all the peas are covered, mix in sesame seeds if desired
Serve. Be complimented on your culinary genius.
Clacked by Julia Hass 
on Jul 06, 2009 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
