This recipe is derived from Tastes Better from Scratch. Naomi and I have found that it works best parallelized across two people: one to make the sauce and watch the noodles, and one to cut and stir fry ingredients.

Equipment

• Wok
• Wok spatula, ideally
• Knife / cutting board

Ingredients

Sauce

• 6 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sriracha
• 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

Stir Fry

• Oil (for the wok)
• 1 block tofu
• 14 oz package L or XL width rice noodles
• 1 red bell pepper
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 medium head broccoli

Garnish

• Peanuts (maybe a quarter cup), chopped
• 1 Lime

Steps

1. Make the sauce. Combine all the sauce ingredients and stir them together. It can be hard to get the peanut butter to stir in all the way, but it doesn’t need to be perfect—as long as there are no big globs it’ll be fine.

2. Cook the noodles. Cook them according to the package, though I find that it usually takes longer than the package says. They should be tender but not too soft—be careful not to cook them too much, or they will start to fall apart. When they’re done, rinse under cold water to stop the cooking and set them aside.

3. Prep stir fry. Chop the various ingredients ahead of time so the stir-frying itself is fast.

   • Tofu: cut into columns about half an inch on each side, and the height of the tofu block (other sizes would work fine too). Lay the pieces down on the cutting board and press a paper towel against them to remove some of the moisture.
   • Pepper: Cut into skinny slices.
   • Garlic: I like to mince most of the garlic and cut one clove into planks. You can mince it all if you don’t want a few big pieces of garlic in the mix.
   • Broccoli: Cut the head into small florets, rinse, and microwave for about a minute until they’re partially cooked, but not soft.

4. Stir fry. Go in batches so that things stir fry instead of just steaming, removing items from the wok after cooking them. I add and swirl oil in the wok between each batch. My batches are usually as follows (with no real reasoning behind the breakdown or order):

   • Tofu, in two halves: cooking all the tofu at once doesn’t seem to work for me, and I have much better luck cooking half a block at a time. When the tofu is close to done, I add a splash of the sauce to make sure that the tofu gets the sauce flavor.
   • Pepper: I occasionally press down with the spatula to blister the skin of the peppers a bit.
   • Broccoli: Microwaving it ahead of time saves a good amount of time here. I just try to blacken it a bit. If I think it’s not cooked enough from the microwave, sometimes I add a bit of water and wait for it to evaporate.

   Once the broccoli is done, push it to the side of the wok, leaving a space on the bottom. Add some oil and the garlic. Let the garlic cook for a bit, and before it burns, mix it in with the broccoli and add back the pepper. Add another splash of the sauce, mix all the vegetables together, and take them back out of the wok.

5. Combine. Add some oil to the now-empty wok and let it get hot. Once the oil is hot, add the noodles and let them fry for a few seconds. Add around two-thirds of the remaining sauce directly to the noodles and stir them up, coating the noodles evenly.

   Add in the vegetables and tofu and pour the rest of the sauce over them. Mix everything together a bit more.

6. Enjoy. Squeeze half the lime over the top, followed by the chopped peanuts. Serve with a lime wedge and enjoy!

   To mix it up, sometimes I like to add some S&B Crunchy Garlic with Chili Oil on top, particularly when eating leftovers.