Pad-Thai Peanut Sauce

I love Thai food, pretty much all of it. This is the Pad-Thai peanut sauce I made and canned. All you have to do is saute the first three ingredients together for about 10 minutes, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about 20 minutes. Then, take it off of the heat. After you put the sauce in your heated and sterilized jars, process in your hot water bath/canner for 35 minutes. Let cool on top of towel on counter top for 12 hours, screw lids tight, label, and put on the shelf for a rainy day! This recipe makes about 2 pints of sauce.

Ingredients:

Sauce

• Peanut oil, enough to coat bottom of pan
• 2 large shallots, finely chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 4 Tablespoons fish sauce
• 5 Tablespoons tamarind sauce
• 2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 4 Tablespoons crunch peanut butter
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon ground ginger
• Juice of one lime
• 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock (add more or less to thin out to desired consistency)

When you get ready to make dinner on another night with the pre-made sauce, you will need some "rice-stick" noodles (you can pick these up at your local Asian market, or I have even seen them at Big Lots). Follow the directions on the packet to cook them, you don't actually "cook" them. Instead you place them in a bowl of hot water and let them sit while you prepare everything else and then add them to the sauce in the wok at the last minute to lightly pan-fry them. The trick to the noodles is to make sure they are not completely soft when you place them in the pan, they should be pliable but not so soft they will become mushy.

To complete the meal you would want to have the following ingredients on hand (feel free to adjust to suit your taste): shrimp, bean sprouts, 1 egg, chopped green onions, and 1 lime cut into wedges. Cook your shrimp first in some peanut or vegetable oil in your work for about 2-3 minutes. Then add prepared peanut sauce and rice-stick noodles (that have been soaking according to package directions). Stir around wok to just to combine ingredients. Push noodles to the side and crack egg into bottom of wok. Stir for a couple of minutes to scramble, then stir to combine with noodles, shrimp and sauce. Stir in bean sprouts and green onions. Serve with lime wedges on plate. You may add additional chopped peanuts on top if you like. Eat it up!