Sasha's Kitchen: Vegetarian Pad Thai

I made this delicious pad thai dish last week and for the first time in my efforts, I finally got pad thai right.  I love a good tofu pad thai, but in the past, things never really came out the way I had hoped.  However, this dish, which I consulted a variety of recipes for before coming up with my own, was a huge success.  My husband loved it as well and it yielded plenty of leftovers that were quickly gobbled up. Tamarind paste is an essential ingredient for any pad thai sauce.  I love the tangy flavor of tamarind in a variety of dishes, and it lends a nice flavor to the pad thai sauce here.  I got mine in Curry Town at Foods of India.

Sasha's Vegetarian Pad Thai
12 oz (one package) dried flat rice noodles (pad thai noodles)
3 T tamarind paste
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 T Sriracha (spicy chile sauce)
1 bunch scallions
2 small onions
1 package (15 oz) extra firm tofu
1/2 cup canola oil
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
 5 large eggs
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts (chopped)

Soak the noodles in boiling hot water until softened, about 25 to 30 minutes.  Make sure they are done before you combine them in with the dish.

To make the sauce, combine the brown sugar with the tamarind paste, sriracha and soy sauce and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.  Set aside.

Cut the tofu into 1 inch cubes.  Cut the scallions and onions.  Saute the onions in a tablespoon of canola oil on low heat until browned, about seven to eight minutes.  Set aside.  Lightly scramble the eggs with a 1/2 tsp of sea salt and cook the eggs in a wok until cooked through.  Break up into chunks and set aside. Stir fry the scallions, cooked onions and garlic for about a minute in a bit of canola oil.  In a wok, add about 6 T of the canola oil and fry the tofu cubes on all sides until browned.  Combine the tofu, egg, noodles and onion mixture.  Add the noodles and sauce and combine well.  Finally, mix in the chopped peanuts and serve.

Sasha's Kitchen: Vegetarian Pad Thai

Sasha's Kitchen: Pad Thai - Chicken and Vegan Versions

Tonight I made pad thai for the first time. My dinner and subsequent post were delayed by having to attend a long and boring condo board meeting. However, the pad thai actually didn't take long to make and turn out great. Tonight's pad thai recipe has plenty of wonderful flavors. I also think that I have worked out a wonderful vegetarian variation to this dish as well, which I plan on making for an upcoming dinner party we are having in January with some vegetarian friends.

Thai food is one of my favorite ethnic cuisines. Thailand is one part of the world that I would love to travel to (the closest I've been was a trip to Australia and New Zealand in 2004). My mother spent three weeks in Thailand a couple years ago and I would love to go back with her on a mother daughter trip in the next couple years. She loved visiting the elephant preserve, as well as the different types of thai dishes she ate in Thailand, which has encouraged me to experiment with some different Thai dishes, including pad thai.

Here is the recipe for Pad Thai. Note that I included a vegetarian/vegan variation on the recipe that I made tonight.

Sasha's Pad Thai

8 oz extra firm tofu (16 ox if you are making a vegetarian dish) cut into small cubes
2 8 oz skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into pieces (obviously omit if doing it vegetarian style)
2 T peanut oil
salt and pepper (for seasoning the chicken and/or tofu)
2 shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 T ancho chile powder
1/4 cup water with 2 tsp concentrated tamarind paste (reconstitute the tamarind paste in the water according to the instructions on the tamarind paste you use)
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 T fish sauce
2 T brown sugar
2 T peanut butter
1 package pad thai noodles, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes
1/8 cup chopped cilantro
4 oz bean sprouts
1/4 cup cashews, toasted
1 T sesame seeds
2 T truffle olive oil
1/3 cup sauteed pineapple (optional - not included in the dish I prepared today)

Season and grill the tofu and/or chicken separately until cooked through for the chicken or slightly charred for the tofu. Set aside.

Heat 2 T of truffle olive oil in a medium saucepan. Note that truffle oil, if you have it, might work as well. However, I have never had the privilege of cooking with truffle oil, as it is extremely expensive. A smallish bottle of truffle olive oil, which I did use, will cost you about $10.

Add the shallots and garlic and cook until soft. The add the ancho chile powder, tamarind water, vinegar, peanut butter, fish sauce, brown sugar and peanut butter. Bring to a boil. When the sauce has a nice not-too-thin but not gooey consistency, you can turn the heat off. If it gets a little too gooey, add a bit of extra water to thin.

Add the sauce to a large bowl with the chicken and/or tofu. Add the pad thai noodles and sesame seeds and mix.

As I said above, do not be afraid to make a vegan/vegetarian version of this dish. I love tofu even though I am not a vegetarian. I find it extremely rewarding to cook with since it basically adapts the flavors of the other ingredients that are used in whatever sauce it is cooked with. Preparing this dish with tofu, along, rather than combining with chicken, would help highlight the other flavors in the dish - namely the truffles, tamarind, and peanut butter. I think that some sauteed pineapple would also potentially be a welcome addition to this pad thai, which I might consider adding in the future.

Sasha's Kitchen: Pad Thai - Chicken and Vegan Versions

Sasha's Kitchen: Carribean and Tropical Cooking - Two Great Fish Recipes

When I first started to cook, I took an old cookbook from my mom called "A Taste of the Tropics" by Jay Solomon. We got this cookbook at a restaurant we ate at in Ithaca, NY in the late 80s and early 90s. The restaurant is no longer there and I'm pretty sure the cookbook is out of print, but it is a wonderful book which taught me a great deal about Caribbean, tropical and pacific rim cooking, as well as many wonderful ingredients used in cooking from this region. In addition, it is from this book that I learned what a chutney was, how great chutneys are with almost any food and how the possibilities for making a chutney with almost any fruit are endless.

At any rate, some of my favorite recipes from this book are Jay's fish recipes.

On page 49 of this cookbook, Jay has a recipe called "mahimahi with papaya salsa." When I first made this, I could not find mahimahi, but made it with Chilean sea bass. I was sold - this recipe tastes perfect with the soft flakiness of a good Chilean sea bass. Plus, it is super-easy:

Chilean Sea Bass With Papaya Salsa
Marinade:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup mirin or sake
2 T sesame oil
2 T lime juice
2 T minced ginger
1 T lemongrass
1 tsp red pepper flakes
several fillets of Chilean sea bass

Marinade from about 4 hours. Then top with papaya salsa:
1 ripe papaya, diced
1/2 Chile pepper
1/4 cup minced red onion
3 T lime juice
1 T cilantro
dash of salt

It's perfect. This dish is great when served with a nice homemade risotto, which is one of my husband's specialties.

Another great recipe from this book, which Jay says originates from the pacific rim, is red snapper with pineapple-tamarind salsa. Tamarind is such an interesting thing to cook with - I absolutely love it. In fact - it's so tangy and delicious that it's great to just nibble on. I once had a wonderful drink at an Indian restaurant (Indian cooking also often uses tamarind) that was a tamarind cocktail that was amazing. The recipe below is unchanged from the recipe in Jay's book, "A Taste of the Tropics."

To make the red snapper basically only requires making the tamarind-pineapple sauce, which is really no more than a chutney. First you must extract the substance from the tamarind. Tamarind can be bought in blocks, generally at an Indian market or specialty grocery store. First, take an 8 oz block of tamarind and combine with 1 1/23 cup water and simmer for 5-10 minutes, breaking apart the tamarind pulp. This will make a tamarind-juice which you will keep, and discard the remaining pulp.

The add the following ingredients to a saucepan with the tamarind:

Red Snapper With Pineapple-Tamarind Chutney

tamarind juice (see above)
2 cups diced pineapple
2 T butter
1 onion, diced
3 scallions
1 tomato, diced
2 T brown sugar
dash of pepper and salt
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp allspice

Cook for about 15 minutes over medium to medium-high heat until it thickens to the consistency of a chutney (very jam like). The add about 1 T of cilantro, or leave it out if you don't like cilantro.

Now all you need to do is cook the red snapper and top the fish with the chutney and your trip to the pacific rim is complete.

These recipes are great because they do remind me of trips I have taken to the Caribbean and to Hawaii and I love the tropical and exotic flavors. Perhaps they are not 100% authentic (one of the contributing bloggers grew up in Hawaii and may write about some traditional Hawaiian cuisine at some point) but I love them and they do transport me to a wonderful, tropical place. Which reminds me - I so need a vacation.

Sasha's Kitchen: Carribean and Tropical Cooking - Two Great Fish Recipes