Pad Thai

Pad Thai

Yesterday was a Monday, my short paperwork and erranding day at work, and I was in high gear from 7am on to make it home by early afternoon to spend time with Ann. Dealing with her father's stroke has been wearing us both thin, her more than me, and she has been away a lot, so we just needed some us time. When it was clear that I would be getting home on the late side of lunch, I asked her if I could bring something home for lunch. By the time she suggested Thai, I was long gone from downtown where I could get some carryout Thai. She then asked if I could make pad thai at home. Fortunately, I was at the market where I could grab some fresh rice stick and tamarind.

It's been a long while since I have made pad thai or even eaten it. It's a dish that I love but don't ever order out. I have yet to find a Thai restaurant in these parts that makes this simple food cart food well. So I make it at home and although the prep takes a little while, the dish itself takes almost no time to make.

Ingredients for Pad Thai

The setup for this pad thai is as follows from the bowl of beaten egg clockwise: cilantro, pickled turnips, pad thai sauce in the sauce pan, lime wedges, kaffir lime leaves, garlic, fresh rice noodles, and shallots.

The first thing to do is to make the pad thai sauce, which I always make separately from the noodles because the palm sugar is difficult to dissolve if put directly into the pan with the noodles. The sauce is roughly equal portions of palm sugar and tamarind paste, a half portion of fish sauce, and a half portion of water.

Tamarind Pods

Tamarind paste is fairly easy to make. If you are working with a block of tamarind pulp, cut off a chunk and cover it with water. I find a little heat helps dissolve the pulp, so I put it in the microwave for a minute. I find it easier to work with tamarind pods than with block tamarind. As you can see above, the pods have a loose bark and then longs strings under that running along and through the pulp. Pull off the bark and pull out the strings, then break the pulp apart between the seeds. Cover with water, and warm. At this point, no matter whether you're working with block or whole tamarind, use a spoon to agitate the warmed tamarind, then work it through a sieve to separate the tamarind pulp/paste from any seeds and debris.

To start making pad thai, I like to caramelize my shallots and garlic and this time I added lime leaves for their haunting scent. I added spicy pickled turnips instead of red pepper for spice. This would be the point where I would have added shrimp and/or tofu if I were using them. Next come the rice noodles. After tossing them for a few seconds, I start adding the sauce in small additions along with more water as needed to steam-fry the noodles until they are just ready to eat. At the last second, I add the beaten egg and stir it in.

I garnished with lime wedges and cilantro. And usually I garnish with crushed peanuts, but I didn't have any. I serve it at the table with white pepper and fish sauce for those who want a little more in their noodles.

A Food Blur

The last couple of weeks have been a total blur. Crazy business last week and playing catch up this week. Working on a new restaurant project. Dealing with upcoming fall winery catering. Working through the details for a bunch of big parties over the next few weeks. It's all enough to drive a person crazy. Pardon me if I don't remember when or if we ate any of the following dishes over the past couple of weeks. Call me surprised that I had any energy at all to cook. It all ran out last night. With a belly full of cheeseburger, I passed out at 8pm and didn't budge until 6am. Be thankful for business, I have to keep reminding myself, and also that not only on "Game of Thrones" is winter coming.

Real Pho, No Garnish

I vaguely recall that I made pho on a Monday when I had all afternoon to make the broth in which to quickly cook some fresh rice noodles. The broth was classical with beef bones, charred ginger, charred onion, and a hint of spice, right up until the end when I put a handful of fresh kaffir lime leaves in the broth to give it a haunting quality. This broth was so outstanding that it did not need any garnishes to get in the way.

Strozzapreti with Fresh Tomatoes, Butter, and Garlic

This was a quick Sunday night supper. I sweated some slivered garlic in butter and tossed in a bunch of peeled and seeded tomatoes for the world's quickest pasta. The days for fresh tomatoes are winding down quickly. Gorge now.

Fried Rice

Another quick meal, a clean out the refrigerator meal. Scrounging in the fridge yielded lop cheung, green onions, a rough-looking carrot, cilantro stems, and red and orange peppers. I make my fried rice Thai style with white pepper and fish sauce. A little prep aside, this is an effortless meal and a great way to use up all those odds and ends in the fridge.



Cheeseburger!

And the coma-inducing cheeseburger. Slow night last night and I got home early enough for dinner. Ann wanted Five Guys. Ed doesn't like their burgers. We compromised. Ann picked up some burger, cheese, buns, and chips at the grocery on the way home. I got there a few minutes later and prepped all the toppings. A couple of glasses of wine later, outside to the grill, where I grilled what is quite possibly the last burger of the year, for it is getting too dark too early from here on out.

This burger photo pleases me. This is a cheeseburger in its natural habitat, hot, on a plate, cheese sliding off the side, lopsided, lid all smashed because the package got manhandled on the way home, getting ready to get slammed. Have you ever seen professionally shot burgers, with the carefully pinned on lettuce, the cheese that was hit with the blowtorch, perfectly lit so there's not a shadow anywhere, condiments artfully put on with a squeeze bottle and a Q-tip? Those burgers are like women with the big fake boobs: they don't look real because they aren't. This, friends, you know is a real burger. And it was awesome, I assure you.

Shrimp and Lemongrass Soup

Shrimp and Lemongrass Soup

Monday I was in the mood for light fare and I wanted soup too, so I combined the two into a very colorful bowl for dinner. This soup is all about the broth as are most soups. I made a stock from water, chicken stock, galangal, kaffir lime, smashed lemongrass, smashed garlic, shiitake stems, and snow pea trimmings. The stock simmered for 90 minutes, at which point I strained it, seasoned it with fish sauce and lime juice, brought it to a slight boil, and added the shrimp and shiitakes. Once the shrimp were nearly cooked, about two minutes, I added the fresh rice noodles for another minute.

Then I transferred some rice noodles and shrimp to each bowl, garnished with sweet pepper rings, snow peas, and cilantro, and then ladled the boiling broth over the top.

A Relaxing Weekend

This past weekend was about feeling good about getting some work done in the yard and then rewarding ourselves by relaxing. Sunday we made a trip to Delaplane Cellars after a morning in the yard. And Monday, after a morning in the yard and a short trip in to work, we ate and sipped wine during the afternoon. I needed a slow leisurely weekend to start to feel good about the yard and to just slow down and enjoy. It was a great weekend!

Relaxing Lunch on the Deck at Delaplane Cellars

Sunday morning started sunny and pleasant but the humidity was up and by 10:30 or so, it seemed like the clouds were building for afternoon thunderstorms. But the nice morning let me get a lot of needed work accomplished in the yard. The younger wisteria are growing like crazy now and need weekly work to train them to our pergola. And since we are gardening on a budget, I was able to transplant a volunteer maple tree and a volunteer crape myrtle from one of the front beds to our property line out back. It felt good to finally get something accomplished in the yard rather than merely trying to recover from the damage from last winter.

In the afternoon, even as the clouds piled up in the sky, we made the quick drive to Delaplane Cellars where we tasted through the current line up and then retired to the deck with a bottle of 2012 Left Bank Bordeaux blend. Left Bank is the blend from the winery's own grapes and though the fruit is very young, it makes for a delicious and easy drinking red.

We saw Jim mowing grass between rows as we lunched and ultimately he and then Betsy joined us out on the patio where we chatted for a couple hours before we had to head home in the late afternoon.The wind got up a couple of times forcing us to furl the umbrellas and we got a few stray raindrops, but it didn't ever amount to enough to force us in. Back home in Winchester on the other side of the Blue Ridge, we saw that it had rained in our absence. Good luck for us!

Monday Lunch: Chipotle Black Bean and Mango Tacos

I worked hard all last week to keep my Monday workload to a minimum and that let me work a couple more hours in the yard before heading in to work to finish up my Monday chores. On the way home, I stopped at the market and grabbed some things for lunch and dinner. Lunch, out on the patio under the umbrella, was these black bean and mango tacos that took all of five minutes to put together from canned black beans, a mango, a bunch of cilantro, a bunch of green onions, and a can of chipotle salsa.

Shrimp, Lop Cheung, and Vegetable Lettuce Wraps

Dinner was another outdoor affair, this time, lettuce wraps with a dipping sauce. For the dipping sauce, I used the white parts of the green onions and the stems of the cilantro from lunch, along with garlic, sambal oelek, lime juice, fish sauce, and agave nectar just to take the edge off the lime.

I threw together a quick stir fry of lop cheung, tiny shrimp, sugar snaps, lime leaves (discarded before we ate), garlic, white pepper and fish sauce. This I mixed with the raw ingredients: pineapple, roasted peanuts, fresh tomato, orange sweet pepper, and lots of Thai basil. As you can see in the photo, the wraps are mostly vegetables with a tiny bit of shrimp and sausage for flavor.

What a Great Day!

Roast Pork Soup

What to eat that is filling, warm, comforting, low-carb, and low fat? How about some terrifically delicious soup with roasted pork?

Roast Pork Soup: As Beautiful as it is Delicious!

There are several tricks that we chefs use to make first-rate soups. We start by jamming as much flavor into the soup stock as possible. And then we cook each of the garnishes separately so that they are at the peak of goodness. And everything is assembled at the last second before going to the table to preserve freshness of and prevent muddling of flavors. This soup is an exercise in just that.

Garnishes for the Soup

This soup has both raw and cooked garnishes, which you see in the photo above, staged for cooking. The cooked garnishes are the pork in the foreground and the green plate in the background. The raw garnishes are the cilantro, snow peas, and pickled mustard stems on the right of the photo.

Just before serving dinner, I quickly sautéed the nappa cabbage, shiitakes, carrots, pressed and spiced tofu, lop cheung sausage, and Chinese chives with finely minced ginger and garlic. After just a minute in the pan, I divided these among our deep soup bowls. Over this, I scattered the snow peas and the mustard stems. On top, I placed three small slices each of roast pork and then over all, I ladled on boiling soup stock, garnished with fresh cilantro, and rang the dinner bell.

Stock, the Key to any Great Soup

While I was prepping vegetables, I put together a stock, starting with a base of chicken stock. Into the stock I put several slabs of ginger, six lightly crushed cloves of garlic, a bunch of cilantro stems from last week, the bulb ends of a bunch of green onions from last week, the stems from the shiitake mushrooms, and the pièce de résistance, four or five fresh double kaffir lime leaves. I hadn't planned on adding lime leaves, but when I saw fresh ones in the market, I couldn't resist. Who can resist their unique and haunting citrus flavor? The stock simmered away while we watched a movie.

Hoisin-Agave Roasted Pork Loin

Early on in the afternoon, I rubbed a piece of very lean pork loin with hoisin sauce, agave nectar, and black pepper and let it sit on the counter to warm slightly before cooking. I roasted it at very high temperature for about 25 minutes to an internal temperature of 135F (knowing it would carry through to 145 or slightly higher while cooling).

All these steps and separate cooking or not of garnishes, really, is arguably a lot of fuss for a bowl of soup. But I'm a chef and this is what we do. And the results? You can't argue with them.

Ribs for Labor Day

For our ribs for Labor Day, I decided to do something totally off the wall and do my own version of an Asian barbeque. I don't have a lot of experience with ribs. Ribs and fine dining are not exactly synonymous, are they? And I don't have any equipment either. But then I can MacGyver a smoker out of just about anything and who said they had to be smoked anyway?

I started with six St. Louis racks of commodity pork. Time got away from me and I forgot to order Berkshire racks from my supplier. I prefer the St. Louis racks (squared off spareribs) to the back ribs (the so-called baby backs) because the spareribs are larger and meatier. Spareribs are the lower half of the rib cage that wraps around and protects the chest cavity. The back ribs are the upper half that attach to the spine. Anatomy lesson over.

Peeling the Silverskin

On Wednesday afternoon, I started prepping the ribs and getting them in a marinade. First thing, I pulled the silverskin off the back side of the ribs. While not necessary, it is what the pros do and as a professional chef, I aim to be professional about my food. Then I trimmed any excess fat and silverskin from the front of the racks.

Herbs: Anise Hyssop, Cilantro, Lemongrass, Kaffir Lime, Thai Basil

From there it was into the marinade which I assembled from a bunch of stuff from the walk-in, mostly from herbs that were on their way out. There's no point in throwing out herbs just because they are unsightly, especially when they still taste good. I made a half gallon of slurry from Thai basil, cilantro stems, lemongrass, some really beat kaffir lime leaves, a huge bunch of blooming anise hyssop, garlic, ginger, star anise, black pepper, cinnamon, fish sauce, brown sugar, oil, and water. The slurry was primarily oil-based on the theory that oil extracts more flavoring compounds from the seasonings than does water. I kept the salt and sugar to a minimum because I wanted the ribs to take on flavor over several days without becoming jerky-like.

Straining the Marinade over the Racks

Saturday morning dawny hot, sticky, and rainy. Not a good day to contemplate firing up the smoker outside. Good thing. I don't have a smoker outside. Right off, I headed into the kitchen to concoct my dry rub, a rub that I have been thinking about on and off for a couple of days. I mixed up the rub that I had been working out in my mind, tasted it, and then tweaked the salt. I'm pretty happy with it and I think I have the long, mild white pepper burn just right.

The formula that I arrived at is:

   4 parts five-spice mix
   4 parts white sugar
   2 parts kosher salt
   1 part onion powder
   1 part garlic powder
   1 part ground white pepper

My five-spice mix is a bunch of things and certainly more than five spices, but as its creator, I am allowed, no? The mix is heavy on ground ginger, allspice, and star anise. It contains lesser amounts of cloves, cinnamon, anise seeds, Sichuan peppercorns, and white pepper.

Initial Dry Rub on top of Marinade

After taking the ribs out of the marinade, I rubbed them to get a nice even coat of the marinade and then dusted them with dry rub on both sides. They then went on sheet trays in a very slow oven for about 3-1/2 hours. Once out of the oven and while still hot, both sides of the racks got a coat of a wet rub of hoisin sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, fish sauce, and cayenne pepper. I then covered them in foil to let them cool slowly in the wet rub.

Wet Rub on Warm Racks

After a night in the walk-in in the wet rub, I put a final dry rub on the racks. In retrospect, it was too much. One dry rub application was plenty. Then it was on to the "smoker."

Racks Just out of "Smoker"

After trying several approaches that were just not going to work, I finally partially disassembled our gas grill and sat a foil packet of soaked applewood chips on the rightmost burner. Fortunately, our grill is big enough to hold three racks off to the left of the one lighted burner, plus another rack up on the warming shelf. After about 10 minutes of the burner on low, there was no smoke and the temperature in the grill was just about 100 degrees—too low. So I cranked the righthand burner and the temp went to about 215 after 10 minutes, with a modest amount of smoke. I smoked the ribs for 45 minutes and they turned out as you see above.

Hot off the Grill! My Biggest Fan!

The ribs were pretty good overall. The texture was spot on: not falling off the bone, but tender to the tooth. The amount of smoke was just right. But the final dry rub was too much. Next time I finish with the wet rub and let it caramelize without the final dry rub. Live and learn.

Kaffir Lime

Sunday after our visit with Donald and Terry at Boxwood Winery, Amanda and Dimitri came back to our house for dinner. Donald and Terry went straight back home after the winery because they have to get up so darned early in the morning to commute. That sucks!

After the long thirsty ride home from the winery, we cracked a bottle of Palacio de Feffinañes Albariño. The lemony mineral crispness was very refreshing after drinking the Boxwood Topiary Cabernet Franc blend at the winery. I got some salume out of the fridge to go with the bottle of 2007 Alpha Estate Red that Dimitri brought with him. I have tasted Alpha wines a few times in the last couple of years and they are always very good. This particular blend of Syrah, Xinomavro, and Merlot from the far north of Greece worked really well with the sausages from Olli Salumeria just west of Richmond. We had a Norcino and a spicy Calabrese made with Sangiovese. Delicious.

Greek Wine and Virginia Salume, a Great Combo!

It is so rare that I plan a meal ahead on a Sunday, my day off from the restaurant. Usually, I am very content to go with the flow and create something out of whatever we have on hand. But not this weekend. We just got a new batch of kaffir lime leaves in and they have inspired me to create a couple of new dishes that I wanted to do at home. Ann kept asking all day what was for dinner and I kept blowing her off, wanting to surprise her.

I came up with this mussel dish for a tasting this week and I liked it so much that I wanted to reprise it. Start by sautéing minced garlic in olive oil with a few kaffir lime leaves. Then add the mussels and a shot of dry white wine (I used Sancerre), cover the pan, and let the mussels steam. When the mussels are open, remove them to a bowl, and return the pan with the cooking liquid to the heat. Add a good splash of coconut milk to the pan along with a shot of fish sauce. Let reduce by half. Meanwhile, add fresh kaffir lime leaves, cilantro leaves, and Thai basil leaves to the mussels. Once the broth is reduced, off heat, stir in a couple tablespoons of tobiko which will turn the broth a glorious orange color. Pour over the mussels and toss well.

Mussels with Coconut Milk, Thai Basil, Cilantro, and Tobiko

Yum! They were Delicious!

For the main course, I wanted to do pork and thought that Syrah might just be a great pairing so Dimitri brought along a bottle of 2006 Grand Rêve Syrah from Red Mountain in Washington State, a dense berry fruit-driven wine. I kicked in a bottle of Barrel 27 Syrah from Paso Robles. Both had enough oomph to stand up to dinner. I love Syrah and was excited to taste the Grand Rêve for the first time. This is not a wine in my usual price category. I have tasted some neighboring wines and like most of the other wines hailing from Red Mountain, Washington's smallest AVA, it is a super effort!

Dueling Syrahs, not a Bad Choice for Pork

For dinner, I reprised a great staff meal from last week, grilled pork burger bánh mì. I originally made this as a meatball for a cocktail party that we catered a couple weeks back. The pork is flavored with a slurry of kaffir lime, cilantro, Thai basil, ginger, garlic, palm sugar, black pepper, and fish sauce. The slurry is so green that it tints the pork! I served them on split and grilled demi-baguettes drizzled with a sweet and spicy rice vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, and chile paste sauce. Garnishes are cole slaw (rice vinegar and sugar dressing), cucumber slices, and fresh cilantro. The flavor and aroma of these burgers is just ridiculous!

Pork Burger Bánh Mì

Yet another great weekend! Thanks to Dimitri for bringing along such incredible wine!