Night + Market Pad Thai

Cooked by Vivian -
Inspired by Nick's Spaghetti Kee Mao, I also decided to turn to the Night + Market cookbook my friend Andi gifted for my birthday a few years ago, to find inspiration.

If your pantry includes some East Asian/South East Asian staples, you probably already have all the ingredients in your pantry/fridge to make the best Pad Thai in your kitchen. This was my small revelation when I looked at the simple ingredients list and thought, on a "normal" day, this is a good recipe...on day ??? of self-isolation, this is the perfect recipe.

I basically followed the recipe with two modifications: in lieu of fish sauce (as Brian is a vegetarian), we would normally go for the homemade vegan fish sauce that we made (and if you have the time, I highly recommend making it, because it's kind of fun and also, time consuming). However, the homemade version we made is chilling in Brian's fridge so I had to go with my third choice: a mix of soy + rice wine vinegar to sub. TBH, it was still very tasty but I will try it alone with fish sauce, too, once I get the hankering for Pad Thai again, for comparison.

For protein, I ran out of pressed tofu a few days ago but had some shiitake mushroom, so threw that in which gave it more umami, which I will never say no to! Plus, Kris Yenbamroong notes that the noodles are the star of the show here, so protein should take a backseat.

Toss it with crushed peanuts, chili flakes, and lime juice, and you have a savory/acidic/lightly sweet/umami dish on one plate in 15 minutes (8 of which to cook the noodles beforehand--although your brand of dried rice noodle stick may have a different prep time!).

Go forth and noodle it up! Recipe found in the Night + Market cookbook or in this GQ piece.

Comments

  1. stenoteJune 8, 2022 at 10:28 PM

    Interesting blog, it reminds me of Myeongdong Night Market in Seoul , in the dense grid of streets in Myeongdong, the food stalls lined-up in the middle of hotels, skin care shops, restaurants, cafés and night clubs.
    I tried to write a blog about it, hope you also like it in https://stenote.blogspot.com/2019/11/seoul-at-myeongdong-night-time.html.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A TRUE pantry lunch: Chickpea lemon-y Pasta

Cooked by Vivian -
Image
What a privilege it is to go to the grocery store whenever you want. To pop in just for the one or two things you need to get to execute a recipe perfectly. To have the money to do so, as well! In any case, it has been a creative puzzle to try to find adequate substitutes in my own kitchen and pantry for a meal, especially at the last dregs before you do  have to make that one big grocery haul a week (or two). As I was scrounging around my kitchen, I came upon one can of chickpeas and one lemon. I knew I had some dried pasta left (although I only had one serving of gemelli and one serving of rigatoni) and the last few stems of parsley that I was able to stretch out for three weeks. Then, I remembered a Melissa Clark recipe that included all of these ingredients, and a wave of excitement rushed through me. We can make a very delicious, very easy lunch! Yes, I had to substitute fresh rosemary for dried thyme and basil. Yes, I had a bowl with two different types of pasta shape
Read more

The Pan Pizza Everyone is Making

Cooked by Vivian -
Image
You have probably seen this pizza before online because everyone is making it. I first saw this beautiful pan pizza on my friend Marian's Instagram. Then I saw it being made over on my friend Nick's Instagram. And then my friends Ian and Kristen's socials. It seemed daunting at first because all I saw was the prep time: 18 hours. But once I mustered up the courage and time to do it, I realized how EASY it was and how DELICIOUS the end result was. I have made plenty of homemade pizzas in the last few years but this one yields both a caramelized crust (thanks to the cast iron and generous portion of mozzarella) with a soft and fluffy dough (turns out, cold rising for days is worth it!) Ingredient-wise for the dough, you probably already have all of it in your house:   2 cups (240 grams) all-purpose flour 3/4 teaspoon fine salt (I use fine sea salt) 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast or active dry yeast 3/4 cup (170 grams) lukewarm water 1 tablespoon (13 grams) olive oil For the toppi
Read more

Never Waste Your Stale Tortillas — Make Migas

Cooked by -
Image
Sometimes, say during a pandemic, you are in a corner store and you spy stacks of corn tortillas on the shelf. You stock up on them because you’re trying to reduce the frequency of your shopping trips — and because tortillas are a way of life.  But some of them go stale before you get to them. Don’t be sad. This is the perfect time to make migas.  "What are migas?" you might ask — especially if you are my spouse from the East Coast. I think of migas as a kind of Tex-Mex cousin to chilaquiles, another dish that I love (and obsessively eat). They both make magic out of stale tortillas, creating that most tasty food texture of crispy-gone-soggy . Though they're similar in that way, they diverge in the details.  Both often have eggs, but whereas eggs are a key feature of migas, they're merely one option for chilaquiles. The star component of chilaquiles — the thing that can make it or break it — is the sauce. Migas is less intimidating to make because you can
Read more