Just Boil, Stir and Eat

Good morning! Today we have for you:

Fast, filling noodles for when you’re feeling sluggish and hungry
A chicken cutlet recipe for all your chicken cutlet needs
And, a beloved New York Times Cooking dessert that happens to be gluten-free

I keep in my head a roster of what I call “Oh, shoot!” dinner recipes. (The actual name is a bit too blue for publication here.) These are recipes that, you might guess, I trot out whenever my original dinner plans are waylaid for whatever reason. The trains stopped running. I forgot to defrost the chicken. The rice cooker will take an hour but I’m hungry. Really hungry, right now. Oh, shoot!

Eric Kim’s peanut butter noodles are an exemplary “Oh, shoot!” dinner recipe — just six ingredients, maybe 20 minutes and no handiwork involved beyond boiling, straining and stirring. I love the unique, one-two umami punch of Parmesan and peanut butter, but more often than not (read: I’m out of cheese) I just skip it or sub in a little miso or nutritional yeast.

Lots of readers call out adding chile crisp, shredded chicken, a sprinkling of chopped peanuts, a squeeze of lime. These are all brilliant adds, but don’t discount the extreme pleasure — relief, even — that you’ll get from eating this easy-peasy dish as is. It’s the perfect dinner for when your day or evening goes to, uh … shoot.

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