Pad Thai redux

When I started this blog, I never expected that one of my most frequent topics would be Thai cooking. But sure e-nough, it is. My muse works in mysterious ways.

I write tonight, however, with a better outlook on creating Pad Thai than is typical on after I attempt to do so. Tonight, I finally created a decent, edible product. I am damned proud. Jessica, regularly the victim of my less-successful efforts, called it the best I’d ever made.

Anyway, I’m going to post my basic recipe here, in the interest of actually being able to throw it all together again sometime soon. Here it goes:

Dan’s Pad Thai for Two, One of Whom is Your Vegetarian Girlfriend

1 1/2 shallots
2/3 c. carrots, thinly sliced
2 eggs
2-3 Thai peppers, chopped
1 can bean sprouts, drained
Cooked shrimp
1 package Thai-marinated tofu, cut into strips
1/2 c. roasted, unsalted peanuts
4 green onions, chopped
1-2 limes, quartered
1 box Thai Kitchen Original Pad Thai kit (noodles and sauce)
Wok oil

Pre-preparation: Convince your girlfriend that you really do need a trip to Whole Foods for ingredients. Grant her that you do have a “meal kit” in the cupboard; argue that a meal-in-a-box is more a fertile springboard for one’s own culinary explorations than a meal in itself. Grant her that it is about to rain, and that it’s nearly rush hour. Acknowledge that you’re saving for a trip to Iceland; nevertheless insist that you can’t make Pad Thai without the goddamn peppers, at least, they say “Thai” right on the placard! Promise you’ll work the “meal kit” in to your recipe.

1) Drive to Whole Foods for ingredients. Wish that you were in a position to reasonably invest in more than two or three Thai peppers at a time. Recognize and accept that you are not at present in that position. Sample the Roquefort in front of the tofu display, then snag another few cubes on your way out.

2) Get over the shame of starting from a box. Maybe using a “meal kit” you bought from a yuppie supermarket will set for your ingredients a wholesome example on how to resemble Thai food. Maybe your girlfriend will eat it.

3) Boil some water.

4) Chop everything. Just kinda do your own thing here. Do NOT, however, touch the oil from the peppers with bare hands — it will sting for hours. Your girlfriend was first to discover their capsaicin-derived power, and it put her off from your Pad Thai for weeks.

5) Get your wok out. Oil it, and cook the eggs until scrambled. Pull them out and set them aside.

6) More oil; more vegetables. Throw the peppers, carrots, shallots, and tofu, then stir fry for a few minutes.

7) Realize loudly and profanely that you never put the noodles in the saucepan. Do so, and decide to just stir fry everything else a little bit longer.

8) When the noodles are soft and separated, drain them. Drop them in the wok and drizzle the sauce on top. Stir everything together on reduced heat. Now’s a fine time for the bean sprouts, too.

9) Assemble everything: Empty the wok into that big ceramic bowl that never fails to lend your casseroles a subtle sheen of legitimacy. Convince yourself that proper lime wedge-placement is the key to making your presentation look more “Asian”; act on this assumption. Maybe stick some chopsticks in there, too.

10) Drizzle more oil into your wok. Note that your girlfriend is a vegetarian. With her out of the kitchen, revel in your ability to cook tiny representatives of a species one of whose chief badges of merit is the “de-veined” label on its seafood counter coffin. Five minutes in hot oil will cook them from frozen. Amid the pop-poppop-ing of oil and ice crystals, you will feel as though you could justify buying several Thai peppers next time.