I want to cook something different. Something good, but something I haven't cooked before.
While I may fancy myself a great cook, in my heart, I know better. There are things I can make that won't be bad -- pan-seared meats, boring spaghetti or lasagna, boxed rice dinners.
Jesus, now that I think about it, I can't cook at all! Everything I make is so...dull. Turkey breast cutlets, cooked in a pan. Same for tilapia fillets. Use a little oil or a little butter for browning. Woo.
Spaghetti? I don't make my own sauce very often. I usually just add ground turkey to sauce and put it over the noodles. I can make Mac and Cheese -- not borne of the box -- but that's so fattening it isn't really fair. Anything can be good when you put that much cheese and butter in it. Seriously. Losing your job would be delicious with cheese and butter.
Grilling is...fun. But chicken breasts or steaks are pretty dull, even with a decent marinade. Fajitas are fun, but it's been done.
I'd like to try something new. And I have no idea where to start. I'm so busy worrying about calories and fat and dietary fiber that I've fallen into a rut -- a dangerous rut, because when you're bored, that's when you go for anything different. And I don't want to just dive face-first into a fast food bag.
Any suggestions?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
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2 comments:
Pad Thai. Delicious. A challenging recipe, and one that lends itself to creativity. It's also possible to completely screw this up.
This recipe requires 1 cup of dry roasted, unsalted peanuts. For best preparation, coarsely break them up in a stone mortar and pestle.
Ingredients
8 ounces Chantaboon rice noodles. These should be soaked at room temperature for an hour or more depending on how soft you prefer the noodles. It may take some experimentation to determine your preference, start with warm water.
5-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped.
2 tablespoons chopped shallots
1/4 cup dried shrimp or 1/2 fresh cooked shrimp
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup regular sugar (or crushed palm sugar but it doesn't make much difference).
2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate mixed with 5 teaspoons water (this makes tamarind juice)
1 medium egg, beaten
1/4 cup chopped chives
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, coarsely broken up.
1 cup bean sprouts
1/2 cup tofu that has been diced (1/2" cubes), marinated in dark sweet soy. "Firm" tofu works best.
Method
Heat a little cooking oil in a wok and add the garlic and shallots, and briefly stir fry until they just shows signs of changing color. At this point one option is to add chicken meat and cook a bit longer, if you prefer chicken pad Thai. Add the remaining ingredients except the egg and the bean sprouts, and stir fry until the noodles soften (about 5 minutes). As you stir the noodles, periodically throw in 1-2 tablespoons of water, and after 2-3 minutes add 1 tablespoon of rinsed, salted radish (optional). Continuing to stir with one hand, slowly "drizzle" in the beaten egg to form a fine ribbon of cooked egg (if you don't feel confident with this make an egg crepe separately, and then roll it up and slice it into quarter inch wide pieces, which you add to the mix at this point). At this point, a very tasty but optional addition is a small handful of dried shrimps. Add the bean sprouts and cook for no more than another 30 seconds. Remove from the pan to a serving platter.
Garnish
Mix a tablespoon of lime juice with a tablespoon of tamarind juice and a tablespoon of fish sauce, and use this to marinade half a cup of uncooked bean sprouts, half a cup of chopped chives, and half a cup of very coarsely ground roasted peanuts. Sprinkle this mixture on the cooked pad Thai. Cut several limes into segments and also slice up some cucumber into rounds then halve the rounds. Put the lime segments and cuke segments around the serving platter.
Pad thai is served as above. You may add Thai chili powder, sugar and crushed peanuts at the table.
Become a vegetarian. Just for a week. You'll be intoduced to a whole new way of cooking and thinking about food.
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