Pad Thai

If you are not familiar with some of these ingredients, you can get them at a Thai grocery store. You don't use too much, and they will last long in your refrigerator. You can adjust the sugar, chili pepper, fish sauce and lime to suit your own personal tastes.

Ingredients:

1/2 Lime

1 egg

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 shallot, minced

4 teaspoons fish sauce

3 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons tamarind liquid

1/2 teaspoon ground dried chili pepper

1/2 package Thai rice noodles

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4-1/2 lb chicken or shrimp (I do a combination)

1/2 cup tofu-firm or extra firm (I actually rarely use this, and it's still great)

1 cup chinese chives or green onion

3 Tablespoons crushed peanuts, toasted

2 tablespoons minced sweetened radish

2 cups bean sprouts

Soak the dry noodles in lukewarm water while preparing the other ingredients (10-15 minutes). Cut tofu into 1 inch long mathsticks. Cut chinese chives or green onion into 1 1/2 inch long pieces. Rinse bean sprouts. Mince shallot and garlic together.

In a wok or big pan, heat 2 Tablespoons of the vegetable oil and add chicken or shrimp. Stir fry until cooked, and remove from the pan.

Add shallot, garlic and tofu and stir-fry until they start to brown.

Drain the noodles (they should be flexible, but not expanded), and add them to the pan. You need to stir this quickly so they don't stick. Add more water if you find that they stick, but your Pad Thai should be relatively dry.

Add tamarind liquid, fish sauce, sugar, chili pepper, ground pepper and sweet radish. If your pan is not hot enough, you will see a lot of liquid in the pot. Turn up the heat if this is the case.

Make room for the egg by pushing the noodles to the side of the pan. Add the remaining vegetable oil and scramble the egg until it is almost cooked, then fold it into the noodles.

Stir in the chicken/shrimp, green onion, and bean sprouts in that order. Remove from heat. Bean sprouts should be crispy and the noodles should be soft.

When serving, pour the noodles onto your serving plate and sprinkle with the crushed peanuts. Serve the dish hot with the lime on the side and more raw bean sprouts on the side.

Thai Panang Curry

I posted a great Massaman Curry recipe a couple of months ago, and this Panang is another one of my favorite Thai curries. It's good with either chicken or beef, but I typically make it with beef. A great thing with curries, is you can throw in vegetables that need to get used up, so a lot of times, I will just use what vegetables I have on hand.

1/2 lb Beef sliced very thin (I like to use a lean Sirloin Tip roast, and I just shave pieces off of it)

1 Tablespoon oil

1 1/2 Tablespoons Panang Curry Paste (I like Mae Ploy brand)

Coconut milk

Put oil and curry paste in a pan and cook together for a couple of minutes, or until the oil comes to the top. Add the meat and 4 Tablespoons coconut milk. Cook slow until the meat is tender (about 15-20 minutes or longer).

Add the following:

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt (can also use 2 Tablespoons of thin soy sauce)

1 Kaffir Lime leaf torn in half

1 carrot, peeled and cut into pieces

1/2 cup peas (I just use frozen)

1/2 cup sliced red or yellow bell peppers

Cook for 5 more minutes or until the vegetables get cooked. Don't overcook, as you want the veggies a little crunchy, not mushy.

I prefer to have a saucy panang, so I always add the rest of the can of coconut milk at this point.

Fresh Spring Rolls

I got this recipe from the Thai grocery store where I buy my Thai ingredients. At our Thai food dinner party, it was fun to have our friends roll their own spring rolls. That way, they could adjust the ingredients to their tastes. I personally don't love a heavy mint flavor, so I put very little mint in mine. And you guessed it, this photo came from the internet because I didn't take my camera out at the dinner party!

Recipe makes 4 servings (2 each)

INGREDIENTS:

8 rice papers

1/2 Cup Thai basil leaves

16 springs cilantro (cut off the stem)

8 shrimps (peel, clean, boil--I like to boil them in salted water with a bit of minced garlic)

1 Cup rice noodles

4 romaine lettuce leaves

1/2 Cup mint

1/2 Cup grated carrot

1 cup bean sprouts

1 cup shredded cooked chicken

Soak about 1/4 of a package of rice noodles in warm water for 5-10 minutes. Boil some water in a small pot, drain noodles and put in boiling water for 1 minute and drain.

Rinse bean sprouts and cook in microwave for 1 minute, they should be lightly crispy.

Put very warm water into a bowl large enough to dip a rice paper under the water.

Put one piece of rice paper at a time under water for about 10 seconds. Take rice paper out of water and lay flat on a cutting board.

About an inch from one end of the rice paper, layer the ingredients in the following order:

Small piece of romaine

Cooked rice noodles

3-4 basil leaves

2-3 mint leaves (I only do 1)

2 sprigs of cilantro

bean sprouts

shredded cooked chicken

grated carrot

Fold the end over the ingredients and roll 1 time. Fold the other two sides over. Lay shrimp (slice shrimp in half so that one spring roll uses only 1 shrimp, but looks as if there are 2 shrimp) on the rice paper. Continue to fold rice paper to the end.

We like to dip our spring rolls in peanut sauce or Sweet Chili Sauce. I have not made a homemade sweet chili sauce, but I do like Pantai's Sweetened Chili Sauce that I bought at the Thai grocery store.

Thai Peanut Sauce

We did a big Thai Food dinner last night for several friends. It was so good, and there was sooo much food! If you haven't tried cooking Thai food before, you'll be surprised at how easy and affordable it actually is.

Something we like to do as an appetizer is to dip sticky rice in peanut sauce. It's also great to dip spring rolls in it. I love this peanut sauce recipe (but of course I didn't take a photo, so I took this one off the internet):

INGREDIENTS:

1 Tablespoon Masaman Curry Paste

1 Tablespoon oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 Tablespoons chunky peanut butter

2 Tablespoons lime juice

3 Tablespoons Brown sugar

1 1/2 Cups coconut milk

1/2 Cup water

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon paprika powder

Put the curry paste, oil and 2 Tablespoons of the coconut milk in a saucepan and cook for a couple of minutes until the oil starts to come to the top. Add the rest of the coconut milk and other ingredients. Adjust the salt and sugar to your preference.

The sauce will thicken as it cools, making it a great consistency for dipping.