Pad Thai and Thai Mango Slaw

I cooked dinner for my semi-new boyfriend last night. This isn't the first time, but I thought it would be better then the other 2 times. The first time was pancakes-for-dinner on my new stove-top skillet. Lesson learned: when they tell you that it is pre-seasoned and stick-free, it isn't. The second time was crab cakes, but I forgot to look for shells in the meat. This third time, I thought I'd be a kitchen wiz. Sigh....

Minimalist Pad Thai (from Mark Bittman, NY Times)

4 ounces fettuccine-width rice stick noodles

1/4 cup peanut oil

2 to 4 tablespoons tamarind paste

1/4 cup fish sauce (nam pla)

1/3 cup honey

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste

1/4 cup chopped scallions

1 garlic clove, minced

2 eggs

1 small head Napa cabbage, shredded (about 4 cups)

1 cup mung bean sprouts

1/2 pound peeled shrimp, pressed tofu or a combination

1/2 cup roasted peanuts, chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 limes, quartered.

1. Put noodles in a large bowl and add boiling water to cover. Let sit until noodles are just tender; check every 5 minutes or so to make sure they do not get too soft. Drain, drizzle with one tablespoon peanut oil to keep from sticking and set aside. Meanwhile, put tamarind paste, fish sauce, honey and vinegar in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and bring just to a simmer. Stir in red pepper flakes and set aside.

2. Put remaining 3 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat; when oil shimmers, add scallions and garlic and cook for about a minute. Add eggs to pan; once they begin to set, scramble them until just done. Add cabbage and bean sprouts and continue to cook until cabbage begins to wilt, then add shrimp or tofu (or both).

3. When shrimp begin to turn pink and tofu begins to brown, add drained noodles to pan along with sauce. Toss everything together to coat with tamarind sauce and combine well. When noodles are warmed through, serve, sprinkling each dish with peanuts and garnishing with cilantro and lime wedges.

Yield: 4 servings.

Mango Slaw with Cashews and Mint (from Smitten Kitchen)

2 mangoes, peeled, pitted and julienned
1 to 1 1/4 pounds Napa cabbage, halved and sliced very thinly
1 red pepper, julienned
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
6 tablespoons of fresh lime juice, from about two limes
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons oil of your choice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste (or omit this and whisk in a chile paste to taste)
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup toasted cashews, coarsely chopped

Toss mangoes, cabbage, pepper and onion in a large bowl. Whisk lime juice, vinegar, oil, salt and red pepper in a smaller bowl and pour over slaw. You can either serve this immediately or leave the flavors to muddle for an hour in the fridge. Before serving, toss with mint leaves and sprinkle with cashews.

About your mango: This salad will work with almost any variety or ripeness of mango, whether sour or sweet. Use the one you can get, or that you enjoy the most. In general, a firmish not overly ripe mango (unlike the very ripe, sweet one I used) holds up best but all will be delicious in this salad.

Results:

Well.....first off, make sure that your local store has the tamarind paste for the Pad Thai before you do anything. We couldn't find it in my local Safeway (the "Social Safeway" in DC nomenclature). Beau even recruited the staff to help us look. At this Safeway, they are very dedicated to costumer service and at one point, we had a 20-year old shelf-stocker, a check out lady with her 6-year-old kid in tow, and an elderly fish monger from Jamaica all helping to find this one item. Nope, no luck. We still thought we'd wing it. Beau's good at winging it.

The other thing you need to make sure of is that you have peanuts. I thought I did, but turns out I was wrong. I also thought I'd just substitute cashews for peanuts. I knew I had cashews, and they are in the other dish as well. What I didn't know until AFTER I had made everything was that this summer's excessive heat and humidity had turned the cashews moldy.

We couldn't find mung bean sprouts, so I substituted regular sprouts. If you do this, I recommend putting them in last, as when I put them in with the cabbage, they overcooked.

Finally, the other things to make sure of is that your dinner guest likes shrimp. 'Nuff said.

So to recap: No tamarind paste. No peanuts. No cashews. Overcooked bean sprouts. Beau don't do shrimp.

I can't comment on the Pad Thai, it just wouldn't be fair. The mango slaw, however, was a fantastically flavorful dish. Almost too flavorful (I think I went overboard on the red pepper flakes). It was very refreshing, and you could really taste the mint. The cashews would have been great with this dish, just to mellow everything out. We used ripe mangos which were a great foil to the onion, and I think that unripe mangos might even be too much. If you try it, let me know!

Beth

Roasted Lemon Zest Powder

Thanks to Suz for pointing me towards the Chocolate and Zucchini blog. Here's a tip for Roasted Lemon Zest Powder. I haven't tried it yet, I'll do a full post on it when I do. I just didn't want to lose the tip. If anyone tries this before me, do tell!

Bok Choy

It was way too hot* to stand over a hot stove, but I had to use up some bok choy I got at the market LAST Saturday. This turned out really well, I'll definitely make it again. I added some red pepper flakes. Supposedly, this is from Mark Bittman, but I just got the recipe from some yahoo on the Google, so who knows. It seemed simple enough, so I decided to try it.

*Uh, relatively speaking. I'm fully aware that many of you currently gripped in a month long heat wave would laugh at me for this. It was about 77 inside,** but I didn't want to turn on the A/C because it's so nice and breezy out, and the house has been closed up tight for days due to rain every day. So it was too warm inside to be cooking comfortably, really. I swear. The irony is that the lower level of our bi-level is about 10 degrees cooler. When you're standing at the front door you can feel the cold radiating up as if from some sort of underground catacombs. Chris is down there watching TV bundled up in a blanket. If only the kitchen were downstairs. Hmmm....

**Yes, I'm bragging just a little bit about the summer being so nice here. Hey, we suffered through months of below zero temps for this glorious weather. Harper had to wear a coat all winter, and next year we'll have to try getting her to submit to the winter booties. I think we earned a pleasant summer, no?

Ingredients
1 T sesame oil
1 T garlic minced
1/2 large onion
2 t ground ginger
1 head bok choy
1 t stock,chicken,concentrated
1 c water
1 T soy sauce

Directions

1. Heat oil in wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add garlic and ginger and cook for 15 seconds.
3. Add onion and cook for another 30 seconds.
4. Add bok choy and cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes.
5. Add chicken stock concentrate dissolved in boiling water.
6. Cook over medium high heat til sauce is reduced and bok choy is tender, stirring frequently.
7. When liquid is almost gone, add soy sauce, toss, and turn off heat.
8. Salt and pepper to taste.

German Potato Salad

From the Washington Post: This is the potato salad Food contributor David Hagedorn grew up with in Alabama; his stepmother, Barbara, always made a Tupperware vat of it. Whether there were six people or 20, he says, there was never any left over. It is best served at room temperature, and it gets better over the course of a few days. Hagedorn has made a couple of modifications over the years, substituting smoked paprika for regular paprika for a more robust flavor and seasoned rice vinegar for white vinegar.

Makes 8 cups

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 pounds red bliss potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar (if using unseasoned rice vinegar that does not contain sugar, add 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar)
• 1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley
• 1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika

Directions:

In a large pot of salted water over medium-high heat, add the potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook until fork-tender, 25 to 35 minutes. Drain the potatoes in a colander and peel while they are as hot as you can handle. Cut one-third of them into 1/2-inch-thick slices directly into a large resealable food storage container. Drizzle one-third of the oil over them, then one-third of the vinegar. Top the potatoes with one-third each of the onions, salt, pepper and parsley, in that order. Repeat the process twice. Sprinkle the salad with the paprika. Cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate at least overnight.

Turn the container over for several hours so the juices permeate the potatoes. When ready to serve, bring the potato salad to room temperature and serve with a slotted spoon.

Results:

Those among us who do not like onions would not like this potato salad, but I found that it was a nice alternative to mayonnaise-y salad. Personally, I don't understand all that canola oil. I know it's supposed to keep it moist or something, but it was just way too much. Next time, I'll use less oil, and make it olive.

roasted corn

Oh my gosh. Kathleen and I roasted some corn on Saturday with the grill (basically, we shucked the corn completely, rolled it in a little olive oil, salt and peppa and then put it on the grill for a while). There were some left over ears. I just cut the kernels off of one of them and put the corn in a salad. Wowy wow wow. Especially good are the blackened parts, the kernels sort of caramelized and it tastes smokey and sweet. I might just have another ear for dessert. Nice work Kathleen!

Grilled Trout

Kathleen (and Barry, Duane and Pete) came up this weekend. We're having a fabulous time, but I wanted to share a technique Kathleen showed me for grilling fish. So you take your fish, you brush it with EVOO, salt and pepper. Then you take a folded up paper towel and dip it in olive oil and rub it on the grill. Be thorough. Put the fish on the grill (skinless side down). When it releases easily, flip it and grill the other side until it releases (Kathleen put the lid on for both sides). I think she had about 5 minutes per side. And then it's done! We used the steelhead trout, but she said it would work with a number of fishes. The key is to be patient until it releases easily. It was very very tasty, I highly recommend.

I find these parts of Wisconsin to be subtly stunning. I mean, it's not going to whack you over the head with amazing scenery like the mountain out west will, but if you take the initiative and look around, it really is something. I love driving south in the morning because it's just lovely, with the green rolling hills, black and white cows, and barns (for some reason it's not as impressive coming back north). On Sunday I went kayaking on a river north of here and it was just beautiful. Besides a lot of turtles and some funny looking ducks, we saw four eagles (!), my first eagles in the wild ever, and apparently the really impressive wildlife doesn't really show up until you go a little bit farther north. Well, I was plenty impressed.