Cold Asian Pasta Salad

Cold pasta for hot days. You can use most any vegetable you like. If you have a dinner party, serve the vegetables and sauce on the side in separate bowls so your guests can build their own meals. The recipe is easy to scale up. *Try cooking the sauce. (Updated June 16, 2020)

Ingredients:
12 oz. pasta. I like Linguini or Fettuccine. (To make the pasta easier to cook and eat, you can break the pieces in half by bending the box over the counter. Be sure to stir the pasta when you first put it in the boiling water to stop the pieces from sticking together).
5 or 6 leaves or small heart of Romaine lettuce, cut into bite size pieces
4 stalks of celery, sliced
Handful of pea pods, bite size
Half a small red onion, sliced thin.
Cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, de-seeded and sliced 1/4 inch
One tablespoon toasted sesame oil to mix with cold cooked pasta

Directions:
Cook the pasta in salted water. While the water is heating, make the sauce: Mix together 4 tablespoons
good soy sauce, 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil, 3 teaspoons sugar, and 2 cloves finely minced garlic.*
When the pasta is done, drain and rinse in cold water, put in your serving bowl and mix with the tablespoon of sesame oil. Refrigerate until well chilled.
When ready, mix the vegetables with the pasta and serve with the sauce on the side.
*Try this with the sauce: Mix the ingredients in a small sauce pan. In a cup mix 2 teaspoons cornstarch with a tablespoon of water to make a slurry. Heat the sauce ingredients until just simmering, and stir while slowly adding the cornstarch. It will thicken. Let it cool and use it normally. The sauce sticks to the pasta and has a deeper flavor.