(.)_(.)
Sunday, May 22, 2011
I can make pad thai
When it comes to cooking I fancy myself an advanced intermediate. Gumbo, pasta, salads, pizza, fried chicken, etc. are all above average. With a decent recipe, some time to shop and execute, there's nothing† I can't make, usually pretty well. I strive to make meals which are better than what I'd get ordering the same dish in a restaurant and I've been able achieve that more often than not. I've even added in some baking recently, turning out a few birthday cakes for Reen and a random batch of cookies here and there.
A simple motivation is wanting to be able to cook the food I like, at home, on demand and for cheaper than I'd pay at a restaurant. One of the earliest dishes I tried out was pad thai. This was during our first stint in northern VA, more than 10 years ago. Being street food, and very quickly served in any thai restaurant, I thought this would be an easy one to learn. There are a preponderance of recipes out there for reference, most of which say the same things: mix sauce, prep ingredients, soften rice noodles then fry everything up. Garnish with ground peanuts and a lime wedge.
God bless Maureen for eating every attempt that I offered up, but over the past 10 years I can recall only a single plate that was up to par...and I wasn't able to repeat that success. Each version was edible, sometimes even tasty, but I could never get the noodles themselves correct and the sauce correct at the same time. It must be the longest standing effort to get a dish consistently good that I've undertaken.
Two of the recipes I've tried are shown below, with the requisite battle stains demonstrating their use.
From Joy of Cooking...not really that bad actually, despite being based on western pantry items.
My desperation is revealed by this well worn recipe from Wolfgang Puck. In hindsight, perhaps not the best chance to find a reliable recipe.
To date, I've only written down two recipes* for documentation in the family recipe box. But tonight, a third is getting the star treatment.
I've successfully made pad thai about 3 times in a row now, with the ease and confidence one has when there's finally no more trial and error going on during the execution. I really know I've arrived because the results each of the 3 times were consistent with each other.
Here are the basics that I've got down and will leave the details (how much garlic, how spicy, what herbs you'd like, egg or no egg) to each individual. Those things are a matter of taste and difficult to mess up.
Noodles
The number one issue here is how you soften the dried noodles before frying. You must soak them, not immerse in boiling water as you'd do with pasta. And the soaking water must be cold, not warm or hot. I assume it's an issue with activating the gluten in the noodles, but stick with cold water to avoid a mushy/clumpy/broken noodle mess for dinner.
I was convinced that the problems I was having related to how I was cooking the noodles once they were softened. The heat of the pan, length of time in the pan, amount of oil, amount of water...all the while, prepping my noodles in warm or hot water because it was a little faster. Now that I'm starting with cold-soaked noodles, they are wonderfully forgiving as far as the details of cooking go.
A second, smaller improvement I've found is to buy the skinnier rice stick noodles which are about 1/8" wide. The bottom one in this photo. This is more an item of preference as opposed to the hot/cold soaking mentioned above.
Sauce
For a standard serving of 4 oz/100 g of dried noodles:
1 Tbl light brown sugar (palm sugar is more authentic if you've got some)
1 Tbl fish sauce
1 Tbl tamarind concentrate
Have a little water on hand to help the noodles along when frying, add sauce about 1 minute prior to noodles finishing up so that the fish sauce gets cooked and the sugars begin to caramelize.
And that's it. The rest is window dressing and a bit of practice to perfect it to your own tastes. Enjoy.
† My first attempt at making hotdogs yielded something that was really stomach churning. I can't actually say if it was inedible, because I didn't taste it. I had worked for a good 3+ hours preparing these and once 'done' I promptly threw them in the trash and took the trash out of the apartment to the dumpster. That was nearly 10 years ago now and I haven't tried to make hotdogs since.
The other blinding failure was an attempt at Coq au vin, the classic french dish of braised poultry. Another long session, which yielded a brownish purple mass with the rock hard feel of an over-inflated football. I did taste this one and would not have served it to a dog.
* the two originals in the box are a chile flavored sloppy joe type dish which I termed a Sloppy José. Served on a cheap white hamburger bun with a slice of american cheese metled on top. Awesome.
The second is a penne pasta with a cajun cream sauce, shrimp, chicken and smoked sausage. This was borne from a restaurant dish that Maureen liked and I was able to recreate (dare I say..improve?) at home. A pasta based jambalaya if you will. 4 comments
When it comes to cooking I fancy myself an advanced intermediate. Gumbo, pasta, salads, pizza, fried chicken, etc. are all above average. With a decent recipe, some time to shop and execute, there's nothing† I can't make, usually pretty well. I strive to make meals which are better than what I'd get ordering the same dish in a restaurant and I've been able achieve that more often than not. I've even added in some baking recently, turning out a few birthday cakes for Reen and a random batch of cookies here and there.
A simple motivation is wanting to be able to cook the food I like, at home, on demand and for cheaper than I'd pay at a restaurant. One of the earliest dishes I tried out was pad thai. This was during our first stint in northern VA, more than 10 years ago. Being street food, and very quickly served in any thai restaurant, I thought this would be an easy one to learn. There are a preponderance of recipes out there for reference, most of which say the same things: mix sauce, prep ingredients, soften rice noodles then fry everything up. Garnish with ground peanuts and a lime wedge.
God bless Maureen for eating every attempt that I offered up, but over the past 10 years I can recall only a single plate that was up to par...and I wasn't able to repeat that success. Each version was edible, sometimes even tasty, but I could never get the noodles themselves correct and the sauce correct at the same time. It must be the longest standing effort to get a dish consistently good that I've undertaken.
Two of the recipes I've tried are shown below, with the requisite battle stains demonstrating their use.
From Joy of Cooking...not really that bad actually, despite being based on western pantry items.
My desperation is revealed by this well worn recipe from Wolfgang Puck. In hindsight, perhaps not the best chance to find a reliable recipe.
To date, I've only written down two recipes* for documentation in the family recipe box. But tonight, a third is getting the star treatment.
I've successfully made pad thai about 3 times in a row now, with the ease and confidence one has when there's finally no more trial and error going on during the execution. I really know I've arrived because the results each of the 3 times were consistent with each other.
Here are the basics that I've got down and will leave the details (how much garlic, how spicy, what herbs you'd like, egg or no egg) to each individual. Those things are a matter of taste and difficult to mess up.
Noodles
The number one issue here is how you soften the dried noodles before frying. You must soak them, not immerse in boiling water as you'd do with pasta. And the soaking water must be cold, not warm or hot. I assume it's an issue with activating the gluten in the noodles, but stick with cold water to avoid a mushy/clumpy/broken noodle mess for dinner.
I was convinced that the problems I was having related to how I was cooking the noodles once they were softened. The heat of the pan, length of time in the pan, amount of oil, amount of water...all the while, prepping my noodles in warm or hot water because it was a little faster. Now that I'm starting with cold-soaked noodles, they are wonderfully forgiving as far as the details of cooking go.
A second, smaller improvement I've found is to buy the skinnier rice stick noodles which are about 1/8" wide. The bottom one in this photo. This is more an item of preference as opposed to the hot/cold soaking mentioned above.
Sauce
For a standard serving of 4 oz/100 g of dried noodles:
1 Tbl light brown sugar (palm sugar is more authentic if you've got some)
1 Tbl fish sauce
1 Tbl tamarind concentrate
Have a little water on hand to help the noodles along when frying, add sauce about 1 minute prior to noodles finishing up so that the fish sauce gets cooked and the sugars begin to caramelize.
And that's it. The rest is window dressing and a bit of practice to perfect it to your own tastes. Enjoy.
† My first attempt at making hotdogs yielded something that was really stomach churning. I can't actually say if it was inedible, because I didn't taste it. I had worked for a good 3+ hours preparing these and once 'done' I promptly threw them in the trash and took the trash out of the apartment to the dumpster. That was nearly 10 years ago now and I haven't tried to make hotdogs since.
The other blinding failure was an attempt at Coq au vin, the classic french dish of braised poultry. Another long session, which yielded a brownish purple mass with the rock hard feel of an over-inflated football. I did taste this one and would not have served it to a dog.
* the two originals in the box are a chile flavored sloppy joe type dish which I termed a Sloppy José. Served on a cheap white hamburger bun with a slice of american cheese metled on top. Awesome.
The second is a penne pasta with a cajun cream sauce, shrimp, chicken and smoked sausage. This was borne from a restaurant dish that Maureen liked and I was able to recreate (dare I say..improve?) at home. A pasta based jambalaya if you will. 4 comments
