Pad Thai

I love grocery shopping. At produce markets that is. I hate big corporations selling foods for obscene amounts of money and no love. I get such a terrible vibe in those places. It sucks the fun right out of grocery shopping. It is so exciting to walk into the produce market, right into all the fruits and veg, ready to pick out the best ingredients for whatever you are planning that night. The produce market is one of my favorite places. It creates a bond between ingredients, me and food. And the best is when you are making, say, thai food, and have to go to a specialized grocery store. Hmart is awesome! A ridiculous amount of samples. Tons of food with Korean writing so you can’t completely tell what you are looking at. It’s my kind of thrilling. Touching this obscure vegetable, smelling that one, then deciding if it’s worth a try. Going through the entire store and getting all the samples. Read all of the package labels. Walking up and down all the aisles to get one specialty item and finding ten other things I want to cook with. That is the way I spend my Saturday afternoons. I’m sure you don’t have that much fun! 😉

Right now I am feeling such a strong love for food. It must be this mood setting music I’m listening to. I’ve fallen in love with The Head In The Heart  and I guess they really are quite mood setting… I’m quite the loving person right now aren’t I? Food, music, friends, what’s next? My cat?

My cat has an eye infection. Poor guy. He is such a sweetheart though, he will curl up in my lap for hours at a time. It is so wonderful. My other cat just flung the door open, meowed, then turned around and walked right out. I love them both to death!
Wow, I am really easily distracted…

I just can’t get over how good this food was, I also made green tea ice cream and black sesame ice cream. Both needed some adjustments so I will get back to you with those! But so good!

I just remembered my close friend telling me she can’t stand pad thai anymore because of an unfortunate encounter with freeze dried pad thai. Now first I’m going to be mean and say who the hell thinks it’s a good idea to eat freeze dried thai food! Alright I got that out. (by the way I love you ms. freeze dried pad thai!) But I really wish I had saved a bit for you to eat. I know you would have loved it, it’s impossible not to!

I love food sooo much. Who needs boys when you have kitchenware, food blogs and ingredients to think about? Ya that’s what I thought…wait you don’t agree? Crazy peeps…

OK, 2 things, first; this recipe has a lot of mindless prep work that needs to be done before you can start cooking, so I would recommend cooking this dish with help. Second; don’t be intimidated by the long recipe list. It is worth it and not quite as much as it looks like. Well actually it is. I repeat. It is totally worth it! I’m dead serious. Well, I’m not actually dead… I am so done. Just make it! Then eat it. With help, otherwise you might accidentally eat it all. Yes. It is that good.

Remember: No intimidation by a long grocery list!

Note: To make this much food you will need a wok!
Beef Marinade
1 1/2 pounds beef, thinly sliced (you can find beef thinly sliced at any Asian market, you will probably want to chop it into 1 inch strips)
2 tablespoon black soy sauce
1/4 cup palm sugar
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil

16 oz rice noodles (ban pho)
sesame oil, for greasing the pan
1 cup oyster mushroom, roughly chopped
2 bunches baby bok choy, chopped and cleaned
4 eggs
1 cup shallots, thinly sliced
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons ginger minced
6 Thai chili peppers, thinly sliced
1 large carrot, peel the carrot, throw away the peels, peel the rest of the carrot into thin strips, and if you know what this method is called, comment! It’s driving me crazy!
6 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup enoki mushrooms (1 package) roots cut off
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup almond slivers,

Sauce
1/4 cup siracha chili sauce
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup black soy sauce
1/4 cup palm sugar
1/2 inch ginger, minced
1 cup chicken stock

See that wasn’t so bad. It only took me 20 minutes to write the ingredient list…

Before you prep everything, do these first 2 steps, they need to sit for a little while!

First make the marinade. Smash the palm sugar up into little pieces, it is OK if there are chunks of palm sugar because it will melt when you cook the meat. Mix all the sauces together then add the beef and stir. Let sit while prepping everything else.

In a large bowl, add the rice noodles and cover with warm water. Let sit for at least 30 minutes, mine sat for longer because my prep took more then a half hour.

Now prep everything. Start chopping!

In a blender mix all of the ingredients for the sauce until smooth. Taste. Add extra anything as needed.

Heat your wok and coat with sesame oil. Add the oyster mushrooms. Saute for 3 minutes, then put in a separate bowl, they will fully cook later when we add everything.

Add more sesame oil. Now saute the bok choy until it is just wilted. Put in a separate bowl and set aside.

Scramble eggs in wok. Set aside in a bowl.

On the highest heat possible, add the beef with all the marinade to the wok. Let sit for about 30 seconds then flip. Cook until you can no longer see any red from the meat in the wok. The meat will let off a lot of juice. Take the beef out of the wok, but leave the juice.

Add about 1/4 cup of sesame oil to the wok, leaving the beef juice in there as well. Add the shallots, garlic and ginger to the wok and let cook for 1 minute.  Strain the noodles, they should be almost soft enough to eat at this point, they still won’t taste good yet. Dry them as best as you can, then add to the shallots, ginger, garlic and beef juice. Give it a quick stir and add the sauce you made earlier. Stir to coat the noodles. Now you add everything. Everything you prepped earlier goes in now! Don’t forget anything! Stir and cook for about 5 minutes, if it starts stick to the pan, add more sesame oil and continue stirring. After everything is well mixed and melded together into a delicious pad thai, serve! I still can’t get over how good this was. I am in love with pad thai! And you will be too. Once you take your first bite.

Even Roger loves Thai…chili peppers. Every time anyone offered him one he would stick it in his mouth then take it out! So cute!

 

Recipe Very Loosely adapted from Girl Cook’s World.