Confessions of Mediocre Cook: Pad Thai Edition

Pad Thai by Kristin

I am fearless in the kitchen. If I am missing an ingredient for a recipe, I throw caution to the wind and throw in something else instead. Unfortunately, these experiences have often produced a less-than-spectacular product (just ask Rachael about my experiments with brownies!). Thankfully, when I am hungry, I am not a picky eater. If the dish turns out more or less okay, then I am okay with eating it. 

My Pad Thai last weekend turned out to be a classic example of my mediocrity in the kitchen. I actually considered titling this blog "Why Carrie Needs to Come Back!" As you've seen in Carrie's previous posts, she can put anything together randomly and have it come out spectacularly.  If it is possible to be gifted in recipe acrobatics, she definitely has that gene.

A friend shared a quote with me today, and it has given this mediocre cook hope to press on. In the words of Twyla Tharp, "It takes skill to bring something you've imagined into the world: to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blending of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time."

So, here is my rendition of Pad Thai, along with some reflections on how to improve the dish for next time:

The Ingredients

I included in my Pad Thai: kohlrabi, green cabbage, spring onions, green beans, carrots, a pepper, bean sprouts, egg, garlic, peanuts, rice noodles, Pad Thai sauce, and for a garnish, cilantro, lime wedges and more chopped peanuts.  

First, I put water on to boil and soaked the rice noodles according to the directions on the package. 

Next, I chopped up garlic, onion, carrots, and the pepper, and fried them in a bit of oil in the wok.

Next, I chopped the kohlrabi. It was my first time using this ingredient, which I discovered is less like green cabbage than I expected. Actually, inside the texture reminded me more of an apple than the leafy cabbage I am accustomed to -- but the taste is definitely like cabbage. 

Kohlrabi  - chopped on left, whole on right

Since I know I like green cabbage, I chopped up a bit of that as well, and put the kohlrabi, cabbage and green beans in the wok to cook. 

When the veggies were softened, I drained the rice noodles and added them to the wok. 

This is where I really went wrong. With my attention on the wok, I'd neglected to watch the noodles sitting in my hot water -- I let them sit a minute or two too long, which meant that they got mooshy as they cooked even more in the fry pan with the vegetables.  Learn from my mistakes and under-cook your noodles.  You can always add more water later if you want them to soften. 

After mixing the rice noodles, I added the packet of Pad Thai sauce to the wok, along with a handful of chopped peanuts and a couple handfuls of bean sprouts. 

Then, because my wok was so full, I took out a separate pan to scramble two eggs. Usually, for a recipe like this, I would push the noodles to the side and fry the egg in the same pan (I hate washing unnecessary dishes!)

After a few minutes, the egg was cooked and ready to be added to the wok.  

Finally, I dished out a serving, and garnished with chopped peanuts, cilantro, and a wedge of lime to squeeze over the dish right before eating.

As I enjoyed my Pad Thai (remember, I'm not a picky eater, so overcooked noodles do not discourage me), I considered how well this recipe may have turned out in the hands of a more skilled cook / blogger. But then again, if what Twyla says is true, there is hope for me yet, and my cooking skill may just need time and repetition before it can be perfected. 

This recipe was gladly brought to you by guest blogger, Kristin Porter.

What do I do with all of this mango chutney?

After making the Thai lettuce wraps, I had tons of mango chutney leftover. I decided to make a fruity chicken dish. I thawed a frozen chicken breast, sprayed a pan with nonstick cooking spray, and added the chicken breast and mango chutney to cook. 

Once the chicken was starting to brown, I turned the heat down to low, added about a 1/2 cup of vegetable broth to keep it moist (any kind of broth would work - we just have lots of veggie broth around because Kristin makes her own), and covered it for 15 minutes or so. In the meantime, I made some long grain rice in our rice maker. I never thought I would be such a proponent of rice makers, but they are super easy. It comes out perfectly every time and you don't even need to watch it! 

When the chicken was cooked all the way through and still tender, I put it on a plate with a little rice. It turned into a pretty good semi-leftovers meal. 

Thai Lettuce Wraps with Mango Chutney

We had some lettuce this week from the farm so naturally my first thought was to make Thai lettuce wraps. I was first introduced to the concept of Thai lettuce wraps by my friend Annie when we went to a quirky little restaurant in Grand Rapids called The Winchester. They were amazing and I started thinking that I could possibly make these at home. I had them again at P.F. Chang's and was unimpressed. The overall flavor wasn't as good and they used iceberg lettuce instead of romaine, which in my opinion dumbs down the dish. After the P.F. Chang's experience, I tried them at home with good results, but I thought I could do better. My first attempt at the sauce was a little too salty because I went overboard on the soy sauce (I had basically just thrown anything that seemed Thai-like into the pot -- turned out good but not great). My roommate Kristin insists they were still excellent, but I wanted to try again. 

So, this week's lettuce wraps were round 2 for me with some necessary improvements from my earlier recipe. But, I'm going to start by describing the mango chutney I made to go with it. This was a first for me so I got some guidance from a Google search, which led me to this recipe from the Food Network, and went from there. What I actually ended up doing was based on the recipe with my own tweaks and alterations.

First, I peeled and chopped 4 mangoes while my lovely assistants Beth and Kristin chopped 1 red bell pepper and about 1/3 of a medium-sized red onion. I put a little olive oil in a saucepan (enough to lightly cover the bottom) and toasted some red pepper flakes (add more or less depending on how hot you want the chutney). Then I added my onions and peppers with a shake of ground ginger. I'm not a huge fan of ginger so I toned that way down from the Food Network recipe. I let that cook (thank you Beth for stirring) while I mixed up about 2 cups of pineapple juice, 3/4 cup of cider vinegar, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and 1 Tablespoon of yellow curry powder in a separate bowl. (I actually measured it out. Can you believe it?). I poured the liquid mixture into the saucepan and let it simmer for about 30 minutes on low heat. I added a handful of raisins when it was about done and let it simmer for about 5 more minutes. Then I cooled it down in an ice bath and voila, it was done!

I was actually making the chutney at the same time that I was making the Thai lettuce wraps and the timing was a little off so it might be a good idea to make the chutney in advance since it takes longer. The Thai lettuce wraps were made with ground turkey that was browned (although turkey doesn't get brown so much as gray) and drained. Then, I started mixing the sauce ingredients right into the pan with the meat (why dirty another bowl, right?). This part of the recipe was completely made up but with changes from my previous attempt. I started with equal parts soy sauce (low sodium) and oyster sauce (available in the international section of the grocery store). I used about 1/4 cup of each. I added a Tablespoon of hot Chinese mustard (also in the international section) and a few good shakes each of curry powder and cumin. Then, I poured in about a cup of vegetable broth (homemade by my roommate Kristin...maybe that would be a good guest blog appearance for later...) and let it all cook together until the liquid was pretty much cooked off. 

While all this was going on, Kristin had been faithfully chopping up our garnishes of thinly sliced carrots, water chestnuts, and spring onion (I know it's a red onion in the picture...it just looked nicer and we used it in the chutney). We used our lettuce from the farm piled with the Thai turkey mixture, carrots, water chestnuts, onion, and mango chutney. Our lettuce leaves from the farm were pretty small to hold all that and we didn't have enough for all of the people that were over, so we supplemented with some romaine lettuce. Both lettuce types were great. It's a messy meal and tends to spill out while eating it, but definitely worth it. It usually works best to leave enough leaf available to fold over (not like the picture below). 

These were extra difficult to eat because they're piled so high