Uppie's Farmhand“I’ve long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we’re talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime ‘associates,’ food, for me, has always been an adventure”
Anthony Bourdain
I’ve never been a big fan of cold salads. I’m not talking leafy greens and whatnot, although that too, took me longer than I’d care to admit to come around on. I’m talking about cold salads such as pasta or potato. I just didn’t grow up with it. Uppie first introduced me to potato salad that wasn’t swimming in mayonnaise, had some bite and loaded with flavors, and from then on I was hooked—but only with hers. I can usually leave most other cold salads where they sit, in the bowl next to the hotdogs, lonely and covered.
Cold pasta was, therefore, never a thing I craved or cared for. Reheat your linguine? Sure. Eat cold spaghetti? Not so much. I realize people swear by it, but not me.
So, it’s taken me awhile to come around on Uppie’s Sesame Pasta Salad, which everyone else dies for, and which is gone almost the minute she makes it. She likes to normally use a hefty noodle such as spaghetti or linguine, but with the pandemic, all we had in the house was angel hair, which she made do with.
This dish is one of those things that she makes by feel, as much as by taste, with a few key ingredients, but with a flexible cast of characters and amounts. It’s like some Zen Buddhist thing where she uses the Force to will it to where she wants it to be. I can’t call this a recipe, but here are some of the things I know she puts in the dish.
Ingredients
- Pasta
- Soy Sauce
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Sesame Seeds
- Green Onion
- Red Pepper Flakes
- Lemon Juice
Now depending on who she is making it for (will kids be eating it for instance) she will increase the heat, and add a variety of vegetables that will include just about anything she happens to have handy from snow peas to red peppers. For a simple, crowd-pleaser, she keeps it rather basic.
She gets asked to bring this to a lot of parties. It’s a little like everything you like about asian cuisine, but cold: Salt. Heat. Crunch. Acid. Savory.
People freak out over it and we always come home with the bowl, because it’s always empty by the time we’re ready to leave.
Uppie's Farmhand
