By popular Facebook demand, I’m posting the recipe for Gorgamole that I made for Super Bowl Sunday.  Yes, it sounds a bit like the villain on the Smurfs, but I assure you, it’s delicious.  We go to a Super Bowl party every year, and the hostess always asks very early on what I’ll bring– and I never really know until the day of. This year, The Better Half requested Nigella Lawson’s Roqueamole– I switched it up a little to excellent results.  You can also mash this together by hand instead of using a food processor, but I like the almost fluffy texture the food processor provides.

Gorgamole

1/4 pound Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup sour cream (I used light, as I didn’t want full fat in the fridge– you could use regular as well)
3 medium sized avocados, halved, with the flesh scooped out and seed removed
juice of half a lime
Six pepperocini (or more to taste), sliced
Sriracha, to taste (I used about a tablespoon and a half)
salt
Chopped chives & smoked paprika, for garnish

In a food processor (or by hand), pulse the sour cream, gorgonzola, avocados, lime juice, pepperocini slices and sriracha until chunky, but well-combined. Add salt to taste and transfer into a bowl, garnishing with smoked paprika and chopped chives.  Serve with blue corn tortilla chips, pita chips, or crudites.

I have more fun making cocktails than drinking them.    Everyone has their cooking niche, and though I think I’ve got some skills all around, I get the geekiest when I’m talking about creating items for cocktails.  I’ve made my own maraschino cherries, my own ginger syrup (recipe to come), my own cream soda syrup, grenadine and bitters are happening this weekend (thank you, Colonel De, for finally getting in quinine!).  There’s nothing quite like making a well-balanced cocktail from homemade ingredients, particularly for someone whose cocktail experience has been subpar– that is, until they met you. Lucky them!  The first time I made a daiquiri– simple syrup, lime and rum– for Terry, it was a revelation.  I’ll never forget the look on his face, and that’s really why I enjoy it so much.

Making my own cocktail supplies is my elementary way of getting into canning, something I fell in love with as a kid (though, strangely, no one in my family did it– I just read about it frequently and found the idea of pulling jars of preserves or green beans or something else out of the pantry that you canned yourself romantic. Blame Little House on the Prairie).  The art of canning and pickling isn’t lost, but it certainly isn’t something that is done as often at home as it used to be, when the fruits of the home garden were preserved for use over the winter.  Now, I don’t have a home garden, but pickling and preserving (even just the refrigerator sort of pickle) has definitely piqued my interest in doing some real canning once we have a bounty of spring produce.  Jams, jellies… oh yes.

But back to pickled onions.  They’re similar to pickling red onions, but the brine is a little different.  These are easy to make, and not just good for cocktails– they’re great on a crudite tray, as a garnish, or straight out of the jar.  No judgment.  The light of the refrigerator illuminates the best of us.

16 oz pearl onions, either fresh or frozen.

1 cup rice wine vinegar

1 cup regular vinegar

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon pickling spices (Get the Colonel’s)

canning jars

butcher’s twine

cheesecloth

If your onions are fresh, peel them.  If they’re frozen, pick out any that may not be whole.  You want only the ones that are whole and plump (that goes for the fresh ones, too).  To be honest, it’s easier to use frozen (and they taste just as good, though they might not be as crisp) as the fresh are a bit fussy to peel. Some of us like to peel. Pick whichever you like.

Place pickling spice in a square of cheesecloth, and tie tightly with butcher’s twine. Make sure the twine is long enough so you can tie one end around the handle of the pot (for easy removal).

In a large saucepan, combine all of the liquid ingredients, sugar and the pickling spice bundle and heat to a simmer.  Add the onions, and boil for just a minute.  Remove spice bundle. Pour into sterilized pint jars, place the covers on top, and allow them to come to room temperature.  Refrigerate once they’re at room temperature and they’ll keep for about three weeks.

Use them to garnish a Gibson, which is simply a Martini garnished with the onion instead of an olive, or just fish them out with a fork at midnight.  Your secret is safe with me.

It’s Black Friday. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to post a cocktail a bit later today so you can drink your cares away. Me? I don’t do Black Friday. I don’t actually buy many gifts– but I’m always on the lookout for cool ideas and gifts that are fun, food-oriented and (preferably) local.

I’m going to start out with something that isn’t local, but is one of the most used appliances in my kitchen: the SodaStream. Yes, really. I have a Kitchenaid mixer, a Cuisinart food processor, lots of cookware and knives– but I use my SodaStream every day.

I decided about five months ago to forego artificial sweetener. I figure it probably isn’t good for me (even though the scientific data seems to be split). I’d rather use a little turbinado sweetener in my coffee than Splenda. I even gave up diet Coke (and I love diet Coke). After all of this time, artificial sweeteners taste awful, and I have cut down significantly on the amount of sugar I use in my coffee and in general. However, I still love bubbles and carbonation. It seems silly, though, to buy seltzer or club soda at the grocery store when I could charge it myself.

The SodaStream is a great contraption– instead of using single-use chargers like a soda siphon uses, you have a big canister that will charge 60 liters.  You can customize the pressure by just pressing the charging button more than once– I like lots of tiny bubbles, so I charge it more. If you want just a little carbonation, you can do that too. There’s no electricity involved, and the plastic bottles last for about a year (I keep two in the fridge at all times).  The charger is $36, but if you bring it back to exchange it for a new one, it’s only $16 for the refill. SodaStream sells flavored syrups as well, but I prefer to make my own– most of their syrups contain artificial sweetener (though the “cola” and “Dr. Pepper” syrups are pretty good, all told).  They have unsweetened “hint of flavor” water flavors too– orange, lemon and raspberry– that aren’t bad, and they recently introduced a “naturals” series that doesn’t have any artificial anything.  I usually drink it plain, or add in some bitters for a bit of interest.

The SodaStream I bought, the Genesis, came from Sur La Table and is priced around $100 (the link is to Amazon, where you can also purchase it).  If you want to upgrade to glass bottles instead of plastic, tack on another $100 for the Penguin (which does look like a penguin and is cute, but not worth the extra $100 for me).  Extra bottles (glass or plastic) are $14.95 each.  Syrups run about $8 per container (cheaper on Amazon), more for the “natural” syrups.  Of course, you can also make your own.  Here’s my recipe for a killer cream soda.

Cream Soda Syrup

2.5 cups turbinado sugar

2.5 cups water

juice of 2 lemons

two vanilla beans

Place sugar and about a half cup of water in a pan and heat until the sugar is caramelized– about ten minutes.  Watch it very carefully so it doesn’t burn.  Then, add the rest of the water and lemon juice.  Slice the vanilla beans down the middle and scrape the seeds into the mixture, and put in the whole beans as well.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn the heat off and let the syrup sit for an hour.  Discard the vanilla beans and put into a container.  This will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge.  In order to make soda, I use about one ounce of syrup to 8 ounces of soda, though you can experiment to find out your perfect mix.

For an alcoholic version, add an ounce of OYO Honey Vanilla Vodka.  It’s cream soda with a kick.

If you’re reading my blog right now, you’re procrastinating about something. It’s okay. I’m writing this the day before Thanksgiving, and I’m procrastinating myself. We’re in this together.

So you’re heading to mom’s or grandma’s or your friend’s or your brother’s or whomever’s house, and you need to bring something. You want to impress, but you don’t have much time. So what should you make? Cranberry sauce.

Not the wiggly stuff in the can (we call that “backup sauce” in our house, and it certainly has its place), but make them out of fresh cranberries that you can probably grab at the grocery store today.

1 12-oz bag of fresh cranberries
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup bourbon (I used Benchmark, as it’s what I tend to use for cooking and for cocktails that need bourbon flavor, but not a top shelf bourbon. It’s good stuff and inexpensive, $9 a bottle in Kentucky)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
splash (about 1/2 teaspoon) vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir to combine, and allow to heat until just boiling. It’s finished when most of the cranberries have popped. Allow to cool and serve– you can do this in the freezer for about an hour (stirring every 15 minutes) or in the refrigerator if you have more time.

It’s the familiar cranberry flavor with a kick. I may or may not add an extra splash of bourbon for fun.

(Guest post by The Better Half)

There is a food connection to this post.

I promise.

It is, after all, a Thanksgiving post on a food blog.

In fact, if you’ll scroll to the bottom, you’ll find a recipe for chicken & dressing.  It’s one of the more unremarkable recipes you’ll ever stumble across.  It offers no new twist on this venerable Southern favorite.  It contains no unusual ingredients. At first glance, the final product would seem quite bland.  And the directions would seem to be given by someone who hasn’t a clue as to how to write a recipe.

And I definitely wouldn’t attempt the recipe, at least without an acute and innate sense of how many cupfuls comprise a “looks right” or how many tablespoons there are in a “’til it tastes the way it’s supposed to.”

The recipe, such as it is, was dictated to me by mom about fourteen years ago.

(Gratuitous and totally self-indulgent aside:  This is my favorite photograph of my mom and me.  What’s strange is that, save for her shadow, she isn’t even in the photo.  I don’t remember a lot of my early childhood, but I remember the taking of this picture with absolute clarity.  It was a few days after Christmas in 1965.  I was outside late one afternoon, playing on what was left of my and my sister’s rusted-out swing set.  My mom came outside and told me that she wanted to take my picture, that she had one shot remaining on a roll of Christmas photos and wanted to take the film to the drugstore to be developed.  The snapshot is typical of my mom…always in the background, rarely noticed. I stumbled across the long-forgotten print after my dad’s death in 2006.)

I’m not one of those people who will swear that his mom was the World’s Greatest Cook.  In fact, I would be the first to tell you that she was not a particularly good cook.  She did, however, have a small quiver of dishes that she perfected through the years.  And I will swear that anyone who ever tasted her chicken & dressing, biscuits, banana pudding, and pineapple upside-down cake would tell you that they were the best they ever tasted.  At extended family gatherings, potluck dinners, and church socials, no one else dared to bring chicken & dressing to the meeting.  They all knew that, at event’s end, their food would sit mostly untouched on the table next to my mom’s empty, virtually scraped-clean dressing pans.

No Thanksgiving would have been the same without it.  It’s what made Thanksgiving my favorite holiday, which it remains this day.  From my earliest recollections until I graduated from college almost twenty years later, I awakened each Thanksgiving morning to the aroma of onions cooking in chicken broth (more on this later, if you stick around that long).

My mom, a lifelong smoker, suffered for years from heart disease.  Following a catheterization in February 1997, her cardiologist confided to me that she wouldn’t live a lot longer.  How much time does she have, I asked.  Hard to say, he replied.  He guessed between six months and a year.

For the majority of my adult years, I lived most of an hour’s drive from my parents and had customarily seen them once a month or so.  During the ensuing months after the doctor’s prognosis, however, I made a point of visiting them every Sunday afternoon for a couple of hours.  During that time, my mom and I talked more than we had talked in the prior fifteen years combined. We revisited events from childhood, both hers and mine.  We dug through picture boxes and photo albums.  She told me things I never knew about my aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  She explained why she had made certain choices and decisions in life, things that I had never understood.

Somewhere along the way, conversation drifted toward food.

I knew that she wasn’t the type of cook to follow a recipe or to write down much of anything, but I asked her if she could at least talk me through the steps in making her chicken & dressing recipe.  She was happy to oblige.  I pulled out the canary legal pad that was in my school bag, and we began.  What followed was a memorable forty-five minutes, all at once funny, exasperating, and greatly cherished to this day.

“You need a lot of onions.”

“How many?”

“A bunch.”

“How many?  What size?”

“I don’t know what size.  But enough to cover this plate in a heaping pile when they’re chopped.”

Sigh.

“So tell me again how much broth I add to the cornbread crumbs.”

“‘Til it looks right.”

“How many cups might that be?”

“I don’t really know.  Several, probably.”

“Mama, I can measure cups.  I can’t really measure ‘looks right.’”

“Oh.  Well.  Five?  Seven, maybe?”

Sigh.

She kept doubling back on things I had already written down:  ”Oh.  I forgot to tell you that you need to…”

So I would write…cross out what I had written…draw arrows across the page…you get the idea.

We laughed, and we laughed some more.  Because we understood each other on that mother/son wavelength known only to mothers and sons, I finished with a pretty solid understanding of how to prepare the dish. I also captured her recipe for giblet gravy. I think we both knew, on some level, that we wouldn’t spend another Thanksgiving together.  As it happened, nine months after the doctor’s prognosis, she died very suddenly two weeks before Thanksgiving 1997.

It was that year that I made my first attempt to duplicate her signature dish.

I must say that I was very impressed with how close the final product was, on the very first try, no less.  My dad, sister, and a few other family members would have told you the same.

I’ve made the dish so many times through the years that I no longer need the “recipe.”  But whenever I prepare the dish, I always keep the wrinkled, grease-stained page nearby.  It makes me feel, on some unexplainable  level, that my mom is still around.

For the purposes of this post, I’m not thankful that I had wonderful parents, though they were indeed wonderful.  And I’m not thankful that I have such vivid memories that are very much a part of my present life.  I’m thankful that, if it’s a given that most of us outlive our parents, I was generously afforded the time, means, and opportunity to say goodbye to both of mine.  I didn’t squander the opportunity. I truly have no regrets.  And I’m very much aware that many people would envy me.

As far as the recipe is concerned, it’s the one thing that will be on my Thanksgiving table.  If I’m the only person to touch it, fine.  For our annual Friendsgiving gathering, Julie usually prepares a second type of dressing…something “fun,” as she says…often something with nuts, berries, and exotically-scented something-or-other, for anyone else at the gathering who needs…something else.

Chicken and Dressing

As much as three or four days in advance, prepare a double batch of your favorite cornbread recipe.  (Please, for the love of God, don’t use any kind of sweet cornbread.  This is an abomination and another post for another time.)  Use a food processor to turn the cornbread into ultra-fine crumbs.

Boil a whole chicken to make fresh broth.  (Use your own favorite recipe/technique and seasonings.)  Remove the chicken from the broth and, when cool, debone.  Set the meat aside (or refrigerate, if it will be awhile before you’re ready to use it).

Chop a veritable mountain of onions (4 or 5 large onions).  Cook the onions in six to eight cups of broth, until just tender.

Set aside enough cornbread crumbs to fill a rectangular metal baking pan (13 x 9 x 2).  Melt a stick of butter and stir into the crumbs.

Add the onion-laden broth to the crumbs until…it looks right.  Use your own judgment for just how thick the final product should be.  (I’m guessing about 5 or 6 cups.)

Add some chicken to the crumbs, but keep in mind that the meat should compliment the dressing…not the other way around.

Pour the dressing into the pan.  Dot the top of the dressing with pats of butter.  Bake at 425 degrees until bubbly.  Turn on the broiler to allow the surface to brown slightly.

(Notes on seasoning:  As any good cook would tell you, season the dish in layers.  Add and check the seasoning at every step of the process. The only seasonings to be used for this recipe are salt and pepper…lots and lots of pepper.  The final product should be onion-y and peppery.  Most people can’t imagine dressing without sage.  My mother would require me to hunt you down and tie your ears in knots if you put sage in her dressing.)

I hated brussels sprouts as a kid.  My dad, who is one of the pickiest eaters I know, loves them.  This makes zero sense to me.  He won’t eat anything that even resembles a tomato (ketchup is out, and he uses only the barest amount of sauce on any pasta).  He orders his filet mignon butterflied and well done.  He won’t eat onions.  The list goes on and on– but he loves brussels sprouts, plain, formerly frozen in one of those square Green Giant practices.

I am obviously adopted.

I decided that I needed to at least try cooking them a few years ago at Thanksgiving (I’m guessing this was around 2004, as I’m fairly sure I did this in my old house).  They didn’t go over well.  I used a Rachael Ray recipe that involved onions and bacon and it just didn’t work.  They were hard, unpleasant miniature  cabbages and I despised them.  I was disappointed, as I thought bacon and onions could fix everything.  In this case, I was very wrong.

A couple of years ago, I tried them again.  I can’t recall which restaurant, but they roasted them until they were almost unrecognizable as brussels sprouts.  They were sweet, tender and caramelized and I just couldn’t get enough.   I was in love. I knew I had to try my hand at making them myself  (again) when Courtney posted about Boca’s brussels sprouts.  I didn’t have three hours (and decided that bacon was somehow healthier than butter) I searched around and found some brussels sprouts recipes and decided a couple of things:

1. My initial idea that bacon and onions make brussels sprouts better is spot-on.

2. Roasting is the way to go (This is true for many foods, actually).

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Onions (improved)

1 pound brussels sprouts

4-5 slices of bacon

1 small yellow or white onion, diced

salt

pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  While the oven is preheating, cut off the ends of the brussels sprouts, and slice them in half.  Place in salted, boiling water for 8 minutes or until just tender.  Drain well and spread in one layer in a roasting pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper and roast for 45 minutes.  Halfway through, use a spatula to turn the brussels sprouts for even browning.

While the brussels sprouts roast, cut bacon into 1″ pieces and cook in a skillet until crisp (I use cast iron or anodized aluminum; just don’t use nonstick and you’ll be fine.  A wok would work, too!).  Remove cooked bacon to a separate plate, and drain off all of the fat except for about a tablespoon.  Throw in diced onions and saute until soft and almost caramelized, about 10 minutes.   When the brussels sprouts are finished roasting, carefully add them into the pan with the onions and add the bacon back to the pan.  Saute until well combined (this takes just a minute or two).  Resist the urge to eat them right out of the pan.

I love thai food. After nearly perfecting Pad Thai a few weeks ago, I decided to try my hand at Pad See Ew. Pad See Ew is far less complicated than Pad Thai– only a few ingredients– but I think a bit harder to get right. The key? Softening your wide banh pho noodles enough and the right balance of siu-dahm, also known as thick or black soy sauce.  It’s thick like molasses and sweetened, giving a distinctive flavor to pad see yew– a little sweet and a little salty.

Pad See Ew is pretty easy to make.  The key?  A well seasoned wok, which gives you those crispy, charred bits that you get at a restaurant.  Nonstick, aside from being of questionable safety, just won’t do.  I bought mine from Saigon Market at Findlay Market for $14.  A few tips on seasoning:

1. Use a scouring pad to clean off the coating put on the wok by the manufacturer.

2. Coat the inside with vegetable oil and put it on a burner on high.  Allow it to smoke, then wipe it down.  Do this 2-3 times until you get a good, brown coating on the inside.

3. Coat the inside and outside with vegetable oil, then put it in the oven for about an hour at 450.  This will get a nice, even coating without dripping all over your oven.

As you use it, it will continue to get a patina that makes it non-stick.  Just rinse it with water, scrub with salt if you need to to protect the seasoning.

Remember these things when doing any sort of noodle stir fry:

1. Small batches are key.  It only takes a few minutes to do each batch, but it tastes much better as it allows everything to touch the wok.

2. Prep first.  As Drew Vogel says, mise en place, mise en place, mise en place! It’s very important to have everything prepped so that you can work quickly and efficiently.

3. Keep that wok hot. It works best on gas heat, but I have (unfortunately) electric and as long as I keep it high, it’s good.

Pad See Yew is simple to make and only needs a few ingredients. For each (admittedly large) serving (though I cook them individually– it’s quick!):

1 package wide banh pho noodles, divided in half. These are much wider than the thin pad thai noodles.  Soak these in hot water for about ten minutes (or until they’re soft) before use.

1 egg

Half a bunch (about four ounces) of Chinese broccoli. You can get this at an Asian market, or you could substitute regular broccoli  in a pinch. Peel the stems,  slice, and use the leaves too.

1 clove of garlic, chopped

Vegetable oil (2-3 tablespoons)

1 tablespoon of fish sauce (or more, to taste)

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

For meat:

Use pork or chicken, sliced thinly– about 3 oz per serving (so 6 oz for two).  You could also use tofu if you’re a vegetarian, or texturized vegetable protein.  To marinate:

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil

Toss this together with your protein and let it marinate for 15 minutes or so.

To prepare:

Heat about a tablespoon of oil in your wok, on high.  Throw in your chopped chinese broccoli and stirfry until it’s bright green– just a minute or two.  Remove from the wok and set it aside.

Put in a bit more oil (about a tablespoon) and toss in your softened noodles.  Pour in 2 tablespoons or so of the black soy sauce and your fish sauce and stir until everything’s well coated.  Let it sit for a bit on that high heat to get some charring, then toss some more.  Slide those noodles onto another plate and set aside, and be sure to clean out any burnt bits before you go to the next step.

Toss in your protein and the garlic now ( both sliced thinly) and stir fry it, being sure it cooks through.  If you’ve sliced thinly, this should only take a couple of minutes.  Push the meat up onto the side of the wok, and crack in your egg.  Scramble– this should just take a moment, and then you can add back your noodles and broccoli.  I like to add a little more dark soy sauce at this point.  The noodles should be soft and evenly covered with sauce.  Though there’s a decent amount of oil, it shouldn’t be greasy.  Plate– one “serving” is really enough for two– and enjoy.

Recipe created after reading a ton of Pad See Ew recipes, most notably Chez Pim’s Pad See Yew for beginners, Pad See Yew from SheSimmers and Thai Table.

I got into a cooking mood on Sunday, and this is what I did.

Before:

After:

That’s a meat loaf, made of 50% chuck, 25% pork and 25% veal, mixed with yogurt, egg, saltines and spices and baked with a bacon lattice.  Glazed twice with a mixture of Mae Ploy chili sauce, brown sugar and vinegar.

And then these little babies to go with:

Oven-roasted brussels sprouts, which were then sautéed with bacon and shallots.

Yes, an evening of excess at Chez WMDM.  And all of it was sourced at Findlay Market: mostly Eckerlin’s and Madison’s.

I’m not Irish. I don’t do much for St. Patrick’s Day. No kegs and eggs for me. No green beer (because any beer I want to drink would look funny green). Maybe a pint of Guinness tonight (I have a bottle in my fridge), but I suppose I have no Irish spirit.

That’s not true– I have Irish spirits (ha. bad joke.)! Here are a couple of tipples in case you get bored with dyed Bud Light.  I know I would.

• Irish coffee is a popular drink on St. Patrick’s Day, though its most famous incarnation isn’t directly from Ireland. It doesn’t involve Bailey’s, and don’t let your bottle of Creme de Menthe get anywhere near it. Make it the way they do at San Francisco’s Buena Vista: Tullamore Dew and lightly whipped cream.
• If you just want something that’s green, head over to booze me, schmooze me and check out The Last Word and Bitter Truth Celery Bitters.  They’re both delicious– and very different.  And way better than green beer.

I can become very focused when it comes to perfecting a recipe. The Better Half will attest that it’s often that I’ll make the same thing several times in one week to get it just right. And yes, dear reader, I do cook– and I enjoy it.

I’d been thinking about pad thai for a while. Dreaming, really. I love pad thai. I know, it’s not terribly good for you and is essentially the Big Mac of Thai food (it’s most commonly considered a “street food”, made to order on the streets of Bangkok) but darn if it isn’t tasty. So last week, I looked at a couple of recipes (notably Alton Brown’s and Epicurious’) and took some aspects of each of them.  From Alton, I took the marinade for the tofu, and I did most of the rest from Epicurious, save the shallot oil.  I made a few mistakes:

1. Mise en place, mise en place.  When making pad thai, I can’t tell you how important the  mise en place is.  Everything cooks so quickly, if you don’t do one, you’re sunk, and probably cleaning eggs out of your saute pan for days.  Trust me on this one.  I could just hear Drew Vogel saying, “mise!” as I scrubbed the darn thing after soaking it.  So whichever recipe you make, prep ahead and have everything ready.

2. I tried to make one big batch instead of individual portions. Big mistake.  It will end up being hard to stir and cook without turning into a big ball of mush.

3. I used olive oil (I forgot to buy peanut).  I should have used a neutral oil with a higher smoke point.  That’s an easy fix.

So, I went about searching and ran across Chez Pim’s recipe for Pad Thai.  Pim Techamuanvivit was born in Bangkok and is known in the food blogging world for her pad thai (among other things). She’s not someone I read regularly for a few reasons, but she’s known for her Pad Thai.   Hers is more of a narrative style, but it tells you a lot about why you’re doing everything you’re doing.  Very helpful.  I highly suggest you read it, but then come back in a few minutes to read my changes. I’ll wait here.

…

Great!  Did you read it? Are you wondering where the heck to get some of these things locally?  That’s where I come in.  First things first: there are three go-to places for Asian ingredients in Cincinnati.  CAM Asian Supermarket on Reading Road.  If they don’t have it there, you don’t need it. Jungle Jim’s, of course.  And, most convenient to me, Saigon Market.  For those of you in Mason, I discovered that MEI has, sadly, closed.  If you can’t find these items there, just ask!  So, the stuff you won’t normally find at the grocery store includes:

• Tamarind paste, also known as tamarind concentrate.  This is in a block of sticky, sour pulp and sometimes seeds.  You reconstitute it with hot water and a bunch of stirring.  You can either, as Pim suggests, reconstitute the whole block at one time with four cups of water, or I’ve been doing an ounce (weighed) of tamarind pulp to about 1/2 cup of water.  You want to reconstitute it until the whole mess is fairly thick, then strain it to remove the pulp.
• Fish sauce.  There are many different brands. Try to pick one from an Asian brand, not something like La Choy (which will be flavorless).  I hear good things about Squid brand, but I’ve been using Three Crabs.  They generally come in 24 oz bottles, and one bottle will last you a long time.
• Palm Sugar.  It’s okay if you can’t find this– you can substitute brown sugar.

This recipe makes about four servings.

Ingredients:

I mostly used Chez Pim’s method for sauce, but I like mine sweeter, so, cook together until combined:

1/2 cup reconstituted tamarind paste, strained.

1/2 cup fish sauce

1/2 cup light brown sugar (subsituting for palm sugar)

Instead of thai chili or cayenne, I used sriracha– a couple of generous squirts.

Next, you’ll need some noodles.  I bought my banh pho at Saigon Market for about $2.  If you buy them at the grocery store– and you can– they’ll be much more expensive than this or any other Asian grocery.  What I do to prepare them is take them out of the package and put them in a bowl, and boil hot water in my electric kettle.  Pour the water on top to cover until they’re softened, then drain.  It takes about ten to fifteen minutes, and you can do it while you’re preparing everything else.

You’ll also need:

oil (peanut, canola– something with a high smoke point)

tofu (optional, I didn’t use it because I didn’t have time to press it, so it isn’t included in this recipe.  I did it the first time I made pad thai, following Alton Brown’s recipe. It worked well.)

Four eggs, which you’ll crack in the wok or saute pan as you make each portion

dried shrimp, found at Saigon Market/JJ’s/CAM

Green onions, chopped

Peanut halves (I am lazy and don’t want to grind peanuts on a Monday night and then clean the food processor)

cilantro, chopped

bean sprouts (I don’t like bean sprouts, so I didn’t use them. If you like them, toss them in last.)

shrimp, uncooked (I got mine at Luken’s for 8.99 a pound.  That’s enough for four servings)

Method:

The method is super simple.  Once you get it down, you will amaze your friends and neighbors with how easy it is to make pad thai.

1. Heat oil in a wok or frying pan. A  wok is $5 at Ikea and about $15  at CAM or Saigon Market.  Splurge on the wok– it makes things so much easier.

2. Put a portion (about 1/4 of the package) of hydrated noodles into the hot oil with about 1/4 cup of sauce. Stir until the noodles have absorbed the sauce.

3. Move the noodles to the side with your spoon (just out of the way), crack an egg and scramble it next to the noodles. Once it’s cooked, mix it in with the noodles.

4. Toss in raw shrimp, dried shrimp, peanuts, and green onions.  Stir-fry until the shrimp are cooked, which will take a minute or so.  Add a little extra sauce if needed.

5. Toss in cilantro (and/or optional bean sprouts), give one more toss, and put into a bowl.  Garnish with a lime wedge.

This takes, probably, less than five minutes.  The Better Half went upstairs for just a minute or two to check on laundry, came down, and was shocked that I was standing there waiting for him with a bowl of fresh, hot pad thai.  Repeat as necessary until everyone has a bowl, and multiply as necessary for a crowd.  It’s that quick. It’s that easy.  I will probably  never buy pad thai at a restaurant again.

(By the way, when will I learn that I need to cook in broad daylight on a Saturday?  These 10 PM dinner shots are just no good.)