Recipes from June
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 01:19:25 -0500 (EST)
From: Idlewild Blue
To: Curly Sue
Subject: Re: Reminder!
here is the pad thai - i halved it, mostly, omitted the peanuts (can't stand 'em) and turnips (couldn't find 'em). i left out the meat to appease glynis and other vegetarians who might have been offended.
Pad Thai
Recipe By: Keith Rickert
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 lb meat (shrimp, chicken, pork, beef...in
usefully small bits)
6 eggs
1 cup chopped green onion
1 lb rice noodles
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 cup chopped cilantro
1 cup ground roasted peanuts. (No shells of course)
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups bean sprouts
2 tblspoons chile powder
1 tblspoons chile paste in soybean oil.
vegetable oil.
8 oz. sliced salted turnip/radish.
1/4 cup fish sauce.
Ok, make sure you have just about all of this ready before you start.
First of all, soak the noodles in lukewarm water for 40 mins to an hour. (Good time to get some of the other ingredients ready). When finished soaking, just pour off the water.
Soak the radish in water for a few minutes, and pour off the water and squeeze dry. repeat 2-3 times or so.
Heat up your wok with a bit of vegetable oil.
Mix the eggs as in for scrambled eggs, and toss them in the wok.
Cook until they are fairly 'hard', moving them around as need be (but as little as possible). Remove them from the wok and chop into slices, and set them aside.
Heat up some more oil (maybe 1/4 cup or a bit less) and add the garlic. When it is getting fragrant, before it starts to turn brown, add the meat.
When the meat is about halfway done, add the radish. When the meat is done, add the noodles and the vinegar and cook until the noodles are soft. From here on out you have to toss it a _lot_. Tongs might be useful. Dont step away for more than about 20-30 seconds, cause you dont want it to burn.
Once the noodles start to get soft, add the eggs, the peanuts, the fish sauce, the sugar, the chile powder, and the chile paste. Continue stirring and tossing, until the mixture is all evenly coated. This usually takes about 5 mins or so, maybe a bit longer. Remove this mixture from the wok and to another container.
Stir fry the beansprouts in the wok for maybe 1 minute, maybe 1.5, then add beansprouts, green onions, and cilantro to the dish, and toss. Keep some unchopped cilantro and green onions for garnishes if you want (you can take bits of green onion, maybe 2 inches long, and cut one end (1-1.25 inches) into very thin strips while leaving the other end intact to get a very nice garnish).
the mushroom tart was as follows (improvised, really)
1 9 inch baked pie crust
1 c wild rice
1 chicken boullion cube, optional
10 white mushrooms
10 dried shiitake mushrooms
2 portabello mushrooms
1 pck dried mushrooms (i used chantarelles, but can use whatever you want, really)
2 T butter
3 shallots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large handful of smoked gouda cheese, grated
sprinkle of oregano, basil, fresh cracked black pepper
salt, optional
soak dried mushrooms for a half hour while you chop up everything into small pieces. (eventually chop those mushrooms, too, when fully hydrated, ~30 min. later) saute shallots and garlic in the butter in one pan. add mushrooms. cook until everyting is soft and then turn off the heat. add the mushroom water from the rehydrated 'shrooms to the rice and add a ground up boullion cube, if you like. or you could do the whole thing with stock. it's up to you. wait till the rice is half cooked, then add it to the mushrooms, including any water that hasn't been absorbed. turn the heat back on under the mushrooms and stir (risotto-like) until all of the water is incorporated and the rice is cooked. add more water or whatever. when it's all absorbed, throw in the seasonings and the cheese and stir till it's all melted and creamy.
i probably used too much cheese this time around, but no one complained.
you can add some half and half for extra richness, but i don't think it's necessary. pour into the pie crust and bake until you think it's done, i did 350 deg F for 20 minutes or so. i sprinkle some extra cheese on top just to garnish.
this recipe is very open for improvisation. use whatever mushrooms you want. use whatever cheese you want. use onions instead of shallots, or add more or less garlic. use broth, or stock, or boullion. use gruyere or asiago. it's very easy to make variations.
the pie crust i used is the one from chris kimball's _Cook's_Bible_. i believe it's the same as found in Cook's Illustrated, but any pie crust will do. when i first had it, we did it with a store-bought premade crust, and that was all right, too.
-j.
___
Will cook for food.
Updated: January 13, 1997
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