Shirataki Noodles with Sesame Sauce

Shirataki is the latest low carb pasta marvel, better known as Miracle Noodles.

Every time I come across any food or drink item that boasts zero calories, I remember my mother’s admonition, delivered in French with a scornful snort, heard all my life, from childhood until now: “Zero fois zero egal zero”. which translates as, Zero times zero equal zero, meaning you get what you put in: Nothing.  My purchases always bear this out. Just to do the dutiful thing, whenever I find one of those zero calorie products I take it home and – nonono I don’t eat it, not just yet: Moi? – start deconstructing it. A good example: A zero calorie chocolate sauce I took home. Like many of my sisters out there, I have very poor notions of math, but enough to wonder: how could it have zero calories? Where is the chocolate? Where is the sugar? Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if we could find zero calorie chocolate? Needless to say, the chocolate sauce turns out to be not a chocolate sauce at all, being totally bereft of chocolate, containing just a hint of dark chemical resembling chocolate, and only in color at that: it tasted pretty ghastly, as it should. As if we couldn’t invest twenty or thirty calories for a perfect serving of a dessert sauce made with real and natural ingredients.

In light of the above, when Jill Goldstein, founder of Miracle Noodle , contacted me to ask me to sample her zero-calorie line of noodles, I almost had to twist my own arm not to say “yeah, right!” or worse, repeat my mother’s mantra to her. Instead I did the polite noncommittal thing and said, OK, it so happens we’re having a Gluten-free pasta demo this week, please drop the stuff at my address. I thought I would make one of the dishes using this noodle, and ask my guests how they liked it.

You won’t believe this: It was delicious! So for the first time in my life, I found something good, good for you, easy to use, and permissible: I don’t know about you, but I’m there! I am not suggesting eating it by itself, it would be like eating tofu by itself. The idea is to include it in flavorful preparations and let it absorb the flavors, but the texture is all the way up there.  I have also used in in salad and even with meatballs: Yum: No wonder it was dubbed miracle noodle! Try making these cold sesame noodles using them!