Thai Stir-Fried Glass Noodles with Carrots and Roasted Peanuts (Pad Woon Sen)

Cellophane noodles—also called glass noodles, bean thread or sai fun (in Thai they're known as woon sen)—are made from the starch of mung beans. Dried, the noodles are thin, wiry and white, but they plump and turn translucent after cooking. To prepare cellophane noodles for stir-frying, they need only to be soaked in room-temperature water for about 20 minutes; use this time to prep the other ingredients. As with all stir-fries, once cooking starts, the process goes quickly, so have your ingredients and equipment ready before you start cooking.