I didn’t forget, you know, I’ve just been at loose ends since we got back from the other side of the planet. And yes, I know, it’s been a while, but I was stuck in kitchen reruns and lethargy. My taste buds have been resurfaced by the complicated flavors of Southeast Asia and I am psyched, psyched I tellya, to mix up Fish Wednesday with a little exotica.
Because I was suffering from traveler’s belly, I didn’t eat much more than rice in Bangkok, though I did have one stunning plate of pad thai and a shrimp salad that featured vast amounts of lime, lemon grass, and chili. Good god, it was delicious. Thai food in Thailand is blazing hot, even when you ask for it mild. Making it at home means you’ve got a lot more control over the BTUs.
We shopped at Viet Wah Market, a big Asian supermarket with a weird smell, it was just like being back in Vietnam. We picked up the stuff that you wouldn’t expect to find at your local QFC or Safeway and a few produce items. Viet Wah packs all their veggies in extended family sized bags so now I have an excessive amount of bean sprouts that I don’t know what to do with. J. made me put down the five pound bag of bok choy, but I regret it because we also bought a package of those fat yellow noodles that we both like so well.
I won’t repeat the recipe I used, a hybrid of one from the Noodle Shop Cookbook and this one from the Thai Table. It was quite good for a first attempt, though a little short on the sauce. The fact that I poured several tablespoons of it on my shirt and the floor while stirring it might have something to do with the shortage of liquids, but next time I make it, I’ll double the amount of sauce and see how that turns out. I only used one tablespoon of Sri Racha in the sauce – the recipe called for three – and it had plenty of bite.
The lion’s share of the work is in slicing and dicing; once that’s done, the cooking takes no time at all. Pad Thai is probably a fine dish to make if you have idle hands about the kitchen, you can set them to julienning things while you deal with mixing up the correct amount of sauce. I made my pad thai with shrimp and tofu, it would be just as good with chicken.
The results were better than promising, quite a good first attempt. Seattle’s diverse Asian population means that we’ve got access to all kinds of crazy ingredients. There’s a Cambodian market about three miles from here, so if I get jonesing for Khmer food, I won’t have to go far to pick up the stuff I need. Stay tuned, Fish Wednesday is going all Indochina on you.
The dish looks scrumptious.
A Tai friend of mine would put in a heaping teaspoon of green curry into my portion of my meal. Then she would empty out the rest of the tin into her and her husband’s portion. Even though I had a baby dose, I still broke out into the sweats. I can’t imagine how spicy her meal was.
Oh yes! For some reason I’ve had visions of Pad Thai swimming around in my head all week and looking at your delicious pic has cemented the plan to make it, maybe even in time for Fish Wednesday if I can get lucky at the supermarket (sometimes they have limes, cilantro and Thai noodles, sometimes they don’t – hmphh) and organized at home. Did you put tofu in yours or just shrimp?
Shrimp, tofu, and one egg, fried in the pan with everything in it. It was good. Not brilliant, but good. A decent first attempt.
And yeah, those people, their food is ON FIRE.