This past week there was a big winder storm advisory for DC. We were told there will be 5-6 inches of snow. Now to many of you that might not mean much but for us folks in the capital that is like shut-everything-down-and-hide-in-your-homes snow storm.
But nothing happened. It didn't snow, not even an inch. But I didn't know that so I decided I spend my President's day evening at home experimenting with a Thai recipe. Since I was feeling real lazy I didn't bother to look up a real recipe and decided to just wing it. And I am glad I did!
So while browsing the aisles at my local grocery store (Harris Teeter), I stumbled upon some real cheap Thai noodles. So I decided, what the heck let me just make my own version of Pad Thai or something close to it. How bad can it be, right? Well with my experiments the outcomes can be, let's say interesting. But this wasn't one such case.
So I had noodles, I needed some protein. So I picked up a box of organic grilled chicken. Now I needed some vegetables. So I picked up some baby bok choy, been sprouts, shiitake mushrooms, spinach and some cilantro. Of course I needed a sauce. After looking through what seemed a million options of Chinese and Thai sauces, I chose Annie Chun's Pad Thai sauce.
So my grocery bag looked like this:
- 1 bunch of Baby Bok Choy
- 1 box of bean sprouts (though you need far less than box but that was the smallest option I found)
- Handful loose cilantro stems with leaves
- Handful spinach leaves
- 1 box shiitake mushrooms (my favorite kind)
- 1 bottle (small one) of Pad Thai sauce
- 1 box of Grilled Chicken strips
- 1 small pack of Thai rice noodles
- One of brown eggs (optional, you may or may not add this)
The total cost was around $22 with taxes. Alright that's a bit pricey for one person but the ingredients are enough for two people and bunch of stuff is left over for future use.
So here's my recipe for "it".
a) Let's start with the noodles first. In a deep pot boil some water (add some salt to it to get the water to boil faster). Add the noodles. It should not take more than 10-12 minutes for this to be done so keep a watchful eye on this while we prepare the rest of the ingredients.
b) On the side, warm up some olive oil in a saucepan and saute the chicken strips. Since these come grilled you don't need to saute them for too long. Maybe 3-4 minutes.
c) Clean and dice the shiitake mushrooms in strips. Throw in the saucepan to saute for a little while. I like my mushrooms a bit crispy so I did this for about 5-7 minutes but you can choose to do less.
d) Dice the baby bok choy leaves and spinach leaves and saute for 2-3 minutes. The bok choy leaves cook very quickly so be careful not to burn them.
e) Add some spices: Salt, Paprika (1/4 tbsp), Turmeric Powder (1/2 tbsp).
f) Throw in about half of the bean sprouts in the pan and let it settle. Don't over cook them though. Not more than 1-2 minutes.
g) Add about 1/4-1/2 cup of Pad Thai sauce and let everything simmer for 5 minutes.
h) While this is happening, scramble one egg with salt and pepper. I like to add some diced tomatoes and onions as well but that might make the over meal a bit heavy.
i) Add the scrambled egg in the main saucepan. Mix it well.
j) Drain the noodles and mix everything together to an extent that the noodles absorb the brown sauce color.
k) Some some cilantro leaves and bean sprouts to garnish the overall preparation.
The whole thing took less 20 minutes to make. For me that is a pretty important aspect. And honestly this tasted pretty good (I mean the sauce was ready-made so the chance to get this wrong is pretty low - just how I like it :)Ideal for Sunday afternoon meal with a nice cold beer!
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