pad thai

For the last couple of years in Riyadh, I ate a lot of pad thai at P.F. Chang’s which is ketchup-y and saucy and delicious. Very westernized and not at all authentic. This recipe is not for that! This is adapted from a recipe in the “Thailand: From the Source” cookbook from Lonely Planet which is full of authentic recipes from chefs and restaurants in Thailand. I’ve changed some of the ingredients and and taken out some that I can’t find easily but the end result is still great. It’s sour and sweet and salty… and easy!

You can make this without chicken if you’d like as it’s still quite substantial thanks to the egg and tofu. Alternatively you can also switch up the chicken for prawns or any other protein.

Serves 4.

4 tbsp canola oil / 200 grams firm tofu / 4 shallots / optional: ~300 grams skinless, boneless chicken / 200 grams dried flat rice noodles / 2 oz (1/4 of a block of) tamarind pulp* / 1/4 cup sugar (I used coconut sugar but brown sugar would be good too) / 1/4 cup fish sauce / 4 large eggs / a few stalks of green onion, sliced lengthwise / large handful of bean sprouts / 1/4 cup crushed unsalted roasted peanuts / 2 limes

*if you can’t find any tamarind pulp, you can maybe find readily prepared tamarind paste or sauce but it won’t be as flavourful. Otherwise you can also substitute with 1/4 cup white vinegar

First, you need to prepare the tamarind pulp so that you can actually cook with it! Pour about 1/3 cup of boiling hot water into a cup and add your chunk of tamarind paste. Let it sit for about 15 minutes and then using the back of a spoon kind of mash it about. Then push through a fine mesh strainer and scrape down to get all the paste through while leaving behind the tamarind fibres. You should end up with about 1/4 cup of tamarind paste. I know – the picture below looks like poop!

After the tamarind paste is prepped, soak the rice noodles in a large bowl boiling water until softened. This should be about 7 or 8 minutes but different brands may differ so check the instructions on the back of your packet of noodles. Once softened, drain the noodles and set aside.

While the noodles are soaking, you can prep your other ingredients. Thinly slice the shallots, dice up the tofu and cut your chicken into thin strips. You can also bash up your peanuts with a mortar and pestle or give them a quick blitz in a food processor.

Heat up the oil in a wok over medium-high heat and fry the shallots and tofu while stirring constantly. It will become lovely and fragrant and start to take on a bit of colour.

If you are including chicken, scoop up the tofu and shallots and set aside on a plate. Add the chicken to the hot oil and stir fry until cooked through. Add back in the tofu and shallots as well as the noodles, fish sauce, tamarind paste and sugar. Stir to combine. If the noodles are a bit sticky you can add a tablespoon or so of water.

Next, push everything to one side of the wok and crack in the eggs. Let the eggs cook a little bit and then gently stir to scramble them a bit. After about a minute, stir the eggs and noodle mixture all together.

Stir in the green onions and bean sprouts.

Remove from the heat and it’s time to plate up! Garnish with the crushed peanuts on top and serve with lime wedges. Other optional condiments you could add to the side would be Thai chilli powder (we used some crushed red pepper instead), sugar and fish sauce. Enjoy!

thai chicken biryani (khao mok gai)

I found this recipe in Lonely Planet’s Thailand: From the Source cookbook (yes, LP has a few cookbooks!) and we are now all obsessed with this dish.  It’s a southern Thai meets Indian dish where the chicken is braised in rice with turmeric and spices and this specific recipe calls for a generous scattering of deep fried shallots over top.  SO GOOD!!!  Even my increasingly picky toddler was going to town on this. (Although, he wouldn’t eat the shallots ‘cus he said they were ‘octopus’ – you can’t win em all!)

A few things I did different: There’s a recipe for a chilli dipping sauce included but I skipped it and just used store-bought Thai sweet chilli sauce.  I also used coconut milk instead of unsweetened evaporated milk and used de-boned chicken thighs instead of entire chicken legs.  Just though it would make my life a bit easier but if you want, the original recipe calls for 3 chicken legs with the skin removed and cut into big chunks (whatever ‘big’ means, I dunno!)

Serves 4

~700 grams skinless boneless chicken thighs, cut into roughly 1 inch pieces  /  2 tsp curry powder (I used Indian curry)  /  1 tsp ground turmeric  /  1 tsp ground coriander  /  1/2 tsp ground cumin  /  1 tsp ground cinnamon  /  1 tsp salt  /  1 tbsp sugar  /  2 bay leaves  /  200 ml coconut milk  /  1 and 1/2 tbsp butter  /  2 cups jasmine rice, rinsed and drained  /  2 cups water  /  canola oil for frying  /  300 grams shallots, very finely sliced (this seems like a lot but it’s really not after frying)  /  pinch of salt

Mix the spices, salt, sugar, bay leaves and coconut milk in a large bowl.  Mix the chicken in and let it marinate for at least 15 minutes.

In a frying pan or a wok, melt the butter over medium-high heat and then add the chicken, including the marinade.  Fry for about 10 minutes or until the chicken is juuuust cooked.  Transfer to a bowl.

I replaced my rice cooker with an Instant Pot so I used that but you can of course use a rice cooker or cook on the stove top.  Add the washed and drained rice to the Instant Pot and then put the chicken and sauce on top.  Then add the water and using the manual setting, set it to high pressure for 3 minutes.  When the 3 minutes are up, let the steam naturally release for 10 min.   If you’re cooking on the stove top, bring to a boil and then cover with the lid and turn the heat to low.  Cook for 20-25 minutes until the rice is cooked.

While the rice is cooking, fry the shallots.  In a frying pan or a wok over medium heat, add just enough oil so that you can deep-fry.  Toss the shallots with the salt in a bowl and then squeeze out as much liquid as you can.  When the oil is hot, fry the shallots in batches for about 1 to 2 minutes until crispy.  When each batch is done, transfer to a plate lined with paper towel to drain any excess oil.

Plate up the rice and chicken, scatter the fried shallots over top and serve with a small bowl of sweet chilli sauce on the side.  Again, SO GOOD!

thai turkey and zucchini meatballs

Life is so hectic nowadays with both a baby and a toddler that I keep f***ing up while following recipes.  Luckily, things still usually turn out and this is one of those instances.  This is adapted from Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Thai turkey meatballs and it’s adapted because I straight up f***ed up the original recipe.  Basically, I put waaay more zucchini in the meatballs – hence I’m calling these turkey and zucchini meatballs – than the recipe calls for as most of the zucchini was actually supposed to be sliced up and added to the sauce. I was worried the meatballs would fall apart and the whole thing would be a disaster but it turned out really well and we all loved it!  Whew.

(We’re still cooking Whole30 for Rock but I’m not 100% strict about using ‘compliant’ ingredients if getting them makes my life 100% harder.  But if you are strict about it, you can use homemade chicken stock and crazy expensive compliant fish sauce.)

3 zucchini  /  1 lb ground turkey  /  3 stalks of green onion  /  1 clove garlic, minced  /  1 and 1/2 tsp grated ginger  /  small bunch of cilantro, chopped  /  1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes  /  zest and juice of 1 lime  /  1 tsp sea salt flakes or salt to taste  /  1 tsp grapeseed oil  /  3 tbsp Thai green curry paste  /  1 (14 oz) can coconut milk  / 2 cups chicken broth  /  3 tbsp fish sauce  /  a large handful of sugar snap peas  /  optional: limes cut into wedges & small handful of Thai basil leaves to serve

To make the meatballs, trim the ends of the zucchini and coarsely grate onto a piece of paper towel.  Squeeze out as much water as you can from the grated zucchini and toss into a large bowl.  Finely chop the white parts of the green onion and add that along with the ground turkey to the bowl.  Next, add the garlic, ginger, 2 tbsp of the cilantro, crushed red pepper flakes, lime zest and salt to the bowl.  Using your hands, mix the meatball mixture just until everything is combined.

To measure out the meatballs, use a heaping teaspoonful for each one and then simply roll into balls.  You’ll end up with about 30 meatballs.

Finely chop up the green parts of your green onion.  Heat up the oil in a large dutch oven or lidded pan and give chopped green onion a quick fry.  Add the curry paste and then the coconut milk, chicken broth and fish sauce.  Let the sauce come to a boil and then gently drop the meatballs into the soup.  Drop them in going around the dutch oven in a circle going from the outside inward.  I was worried they wouldn’t all fit in but they did!

Let the sauce come to a boil again and then slap the lid on and turn the heat down to a simmer.  Let it simmer for about 20 minutes and check that the meatballs are cooked through.  Add the snap peas and the juice of the one lime.  I didn’t do this but if you want you can serve with some Thai basil and lime wedges.

 

 

pork-stuffed cucumber soup

So we COOKED cucumbers today for the first time!  And I guess we also stuffed pork into cucumbers for the first time too!  Onwards we go with Rock’s Whole30 challenge and tonight I made this soup from Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings book. Kind of reminded me of Chinese winter melon soup and it was delicious.  Even our toddler finished his bowl which is amazing considering he’s so picky lately.  A few things – to make it Whole30 I had to substitute the soy sauce with coconut aminos (something i didn’t even know existed until a week ago!) and I used organic chicken stock instead of bouillon cubes (which still has some trace amount of sugar in it but I made the executive decision that I just didn’t care.  Turns out sugar really is in EVERYTHING! If you’re strict with Whole30 you can always make your own chicken stock.)

And as for the cucumbers, I used the English cucumbers that are readily available at the supermarket but after making this soup, I’m pretty sure the recipe uses the other variety of cucumber that’s shorter and chubbier; not sure what it’s called.  Our cucumbers looked waaaay longer than the ones in the book.  Do we not use the same type of cucumber as in the US??  Will google that later.  Next time I’d probably hunt down those fatter cukes or cut the English ones into thirds.  I also only used 4 cucumbers and 10 cups of stock, which I’m glad I did because my dutch oven was almost filled to the brim!  Here I’ll give you the recipe with the ingredient list straight from the book though.

This would serve 3-4 as a main.

1 lb ground pork  /  1/4 cup light soy sauce  /  10 cloves garlic, minced  /  1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper  /  5 cucumbers, peeled, ends not trimmed  /  3 chicken bouillon cubes  /  1 bunch honshimeji mushrooms, trimmed (I couldn’t find these so I substituted enoki mushrooms)  /  1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion

Mix the pork, soy sauce, garlic and pepper together in a bowl.  Then, cut the cucumbers in half, crosswise.  Chrissy suggests using a measuring spoon or a pineapple corer to hallow out the cucumbers so that they become hallow tubes with still the end intact.  I just used the handle of a spoon and it worked great.

Then you stuff the cucumbers with the pork mixture. (We had quite a bit of pork mixture leftover and in hindsight, we should’ve just made them into meatballs and added them to the soup.  Next time!)

Next, in a large dutch oven or soup pot over high heat, mix 12 cups of water with the bouillon cubes and bring it to a boil. (Or if you’re using chicken stock, simply heat it to a boil.)  Add in the cucumbers and lower the heat to a simmer; letting it cook for 30 minutes.

Then add in the mushrooms and cook for about 15 minutes longer.  The cucumbers should be tender and the pork cooked through.  Serve with the green onions over top.