Butternut Dan Dan Noodles

Ingredients

• 400-500 gm whole wheat noodles
  

Topping

• 1/2 a large buternut squash or a whole small squash
  
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4-5 dry chilies
• 1 tsp szechuan pepper whole
• handful of peanuts
  

Sauce

• 1 tbs seaseme paste
• 1 tbs dark soy sauce
• 1 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tbs seaseme oil
• 1 tbs chili oil
• 1 tsp ground szechuan pepper

Directions
Clean and chop the squash into thin squares about 1/4 across. Fry the squash, garlic, chilies, whole pepper in a wok over high heat. Cook until the squash begins to brown and the skin becomes tender. Add the peanuts and cook a minute longer. Remove from heat and drain excess oil.

Boil the noodles in a large pot and then drain when al dente.

Combine all the ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl and mix until it forms a smooth, liquid paste.

Combine squash, noodles, and sauce in a large dish and serve immediately.

Notes
This serves two with some leftovers, or four with other dishes.

No this is nothing like authentic, but it is very tasty. It is not very spicy, but the szechuan pepper adds a tingle to the taste. The squash meshes very well with the rest of the dish, which is somewhat surprising since it is typically rather sweet. The dish takes very little time to prepare if you can cook the noodles quickly. It took me about 20 minutes preparing all of the parts in parallel.

While cooking, make sure to not cook too much of the squash at once. If you have a large wok, you can probably cook all of the squash at once. Otherwise you'll want to do it in batches. Too much squash will lower the temperature of the oil, cook slower, and come out somewhat soggy.