Cooking: Peanut Noodles with Shrimp

I used Mark Bittman's recipe for Peanut Noodles with Shrimp but with some variations on my own.  Below is how I cooked the dish.

Start a pot of water boiling in which to soak your rice noodles.

Make the peanut sauce by whisking lime juice, peanut butter, sugar, and fish sauce.  Thin with water if the consistency is too thick.

Once the water is boiling, turn off the burner and add your rice noodles to soak--soft but not mushy.

While the noodles soak, grate a carrot and mince a jalapeño and a couple cloves of garlic.

Get your sauté pan hot with a tablespoon or so of peanut oil and have your deveined and peeled shrimp ready.

Once the oil is hot, toss in your shrimp and a sprinkle of a half teaspoon of salt.

Toss in the grated carrot and minced jalapeño and garlic.  Stir fry your veggies and aromatics with the shrimp until pink, about 2 minutes.  Do not let your shrimp get rubbery or overcooked.  Turn off the burner and let cool a bit.  And while the shrimp is cooling, chop some cilantro and scallions, ready to sprinkle on your finished  noodles.

Here's the tricky part.  Test your noodles.  If they're in the least bit al dente like when you cook wheat pasta, that's no good.  And neither is mushy, mealy noodles.  You want your noodles soft and limp.

Toss your rice noodles and shrimp in the peanut sauce; let it soak up all the deliciousness.

Slide sauced noodles into a serving bowl and sprinkle with your scallions and cilantro.  It looks like I went overboard on the green sprinkles above, but toss the noodles again and I promise it's just right and even prettier.

Serve and enjoy.  Plastic wrap what's leftover really well as rice noodles tend to get a little hard if not kept moist.  You can also sprinkle a little bit of water atop your noodles if they get too firm.