Trying to get wasted on drunken noodles ...

Pad Kee Mao.

Three magic words that can make me skip around in circles. Easily my favourite Thai food, I'm pretty much the informal PKM taster of the city. In fact, there are so many joints that dish up a killer PKM that I've hardly felt the need for attempting a recreation at home.

Until today. We had this hankering for chef-fin' it out. We wanted to be the masters of our own Pad Kee Mao destiny. For some reason, hitting Typhoon or Thin Pan just did not seem enough. So, we embarked on this PKM journey. It was our first time working with those crazy wide rice noodles. When we first saw this dense package in the refrigerated section of Uwajimaya, we weren't quite sure if that was what we wanted - where were the ribbons or pieces of noodles? This just looked like a giant brick! Well, guess we'd have to figure it out. We loaded up on thai basil, a slew of vegetables and sauces and got to work! :)

The insanely delicious drunken noodles is a multi-step dish - with a fascinating assortment of sauces and spice - tamari, soy sauce, oyster sauce, white soy sauce (or fish sauce), red chillies, thai bird chillies, the list goes on!

So, we have to talk about our pitfalls upfront here. For some bizarre reason, we decided to try some additional seasoning here and went for a spoon of chili bean paste. *bad* idea. Don't even try it. I mean, this might work well with other szechuan dishes, but it is not a thai flavour by any means. And the bean bits add a weird flavour to drunken noodles. So, don't do it. Don't.

(Which is why I've excluded it from the recipe.)

Pad Kee Mao
*hic*

Servings: 4

7-8 oz wide rice noodles (sen-yai)
1/2 cup firm tofu - cubed
3 cloves garlic - finely chopped
1 small onion - sliced long
3 T white rice vinegar
3 T white soy sauce (See-yew Khaaw)
4 T palm sugar
3 T lime juice
2 T tamari
4-5 T vegetarian oyster sauce
2 T ground dried red chillies
2 green jalapenos - finely chopped
1 small thai chilli - chopped (Prik Kee Nuu Suan)
7-8 broccoli florets
7-8 cauliflower florets
2 small carrots - sliced
1 tomato - cut into eighths
1 baby bok choy - chopped
1 cup fresh thai basil leaves
2 T peanut oil
1/2 cup egg whites

Soak sen-yai noodles in water for 15 mins. Place soaking sen-yai noodles on the stove and bring to very slow boil, removing the sen-yai noodles while they are still firm (after about 10 minutes). Drain with cold water and set aside.

Spray the tofu chunks with oil spray and stick them under a broiler till browned.

Blanch the broccoli, cauliflower and carrots in a pot of boiling water for 3-4 minutes till al dente.

Heat the oil in a wok and saute the garlic till it starts to brown.
Throw in the onions along with the jalapenos and saute briefly.
Add the scrambled egg whites and saute a bit longer.
Now throw in the rice vinegar, dried chillies, lime juice, sugar and white soy sauce
Turn the heat to high and let the sauce thicken.
Once the sauce reduces, add the thai basil leaves along with bok choy, oyster sauce and tamari.
Saute for a couple more minutes before adding the blanched vegetables.
Add the cooked noodles and tofu and saute for 4-5 minutes on medium heat. Keep tossing the ingredients to mix the sauce completely with the noodles and vegetables.

Top with the tomatoes and cilantro before serving. Maybe even garnish with sliced green onions or chopped garlic or jalapenos.


Opinion?

*mediocre*. Firstly, we killed the drunken high by adding that damn chili bean paste. That was a serious mistake. It'll never happen again! But the main issue here was that we're so damn stuffed from the flu that plagued us for the past week that our sense of smell is still on vacation. And that in turn is still greatly hampering our taste buds. *grr*. Even a nice dose of spicy thai chillies couldn't quite fix it! Another thing we did, as odd as it may sound - we used too many vegetables! Next time around, we're only going with broccoli and some carrots, no cauliflower - that's a bit of an overkill in our PKM.

So, we didn't end up being the Iron Chef of PKM. We barely got drunk on our noodles! But we learned our lessons. And the PKM flame burns bright now - we're itching to try it again :)

'Boreking' some bread :)

"Mediterranean Street Food" - how can one not fall in love with this book? *sigh* As I turn the pages, I'm totally mired in nostalgia as I'm taken back to the souks of Fez, the bustling streets of Cairo, Monastiraki Square in Athens ... *sigh*. And then I start dreaming of wandering around Istanbul, sitting on a beach in Sicily and visiting the multitude of mediterranean destinations that I haven't been to yet! Damn this travel bug.

Anissa Helou is a master of weaving stories around street food - and who can resist that? Her book is a treasure trove of travel encounters, local foods, interactions with berbers and irresistable recipes of local foods that she samples as she hops from tea cart to sandwich stand to candy stall. Sure sounds like a good life, doesn't it?

I flipped the pages of this book, sighing as I read the blurbs, I could almost smell the foods that she was talking about!

*growl*

That was my belly! Guess it was time to find something to cook instead of dreaming of all the fabulous street food I could be noshing on.


Saj Borek.

That's where my eyes landed. Hmm ... this sounded like a cross between a calzone and a stuffed paratha. Saj Boreks are a specialty of Anatolia - the Asiatic area of what is modern Turkey (called Asia Minor in ancient times).

The traditional dough for saj borek uses a variety of flours - bread flour, all-purpose and whole wheat. The pastries work with a plethora of fillings - ground meat, potatoes, spinach and feta.
I didn't feel like a plain cheese filling or something as heavy as potatoes, so I went with a broccoli filling instead. That might just be one of the best things I've done all week!

:)

Saj Borek with Broccoli and Cheese
Yummy savoury street food

Servings: 8-10

For the dough:

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 t salt
1 t chilli powder
1/2 cup buttermilk
warm water for kneading

For the filling:

1 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 T flat-leaf parsley
2 medium heads of broccoli - chopped
1 T harissa

To finish:

1-2 T butter - melted

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, add the salt, chilli powder and buttermilk.
Start kneading the dough, adding warm water as needed.
Knead for 5-10 minutes till a smooth, firm dough is formed.
Cover with a damp paper towel or cloth and let the dough sit for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, run the broccoli and parsley through a food processor to make a coarse crumble.
Add the crumbled feta cheese along with the harissa (you could use hot sauce or red pepper flakes if you don't have harissa).

Flour the work surface and a rolling pin.
Take a ball of dough and roll it out as thinly as possible, flouring it all the time till a 12" diameter circle is formed.
Sprinkle a handful of the broccoli-cheese mixture over the lower half of the dough.
Fold the plain side of the dough over the filling to make a half circle.

Heat a nonstick griddle over medium heat.
Place the filled dough on the hot griddle and cook for a couple of minutes on one side.
Flip the pastry over and cook the other side for another 1-2 minutes.
Both side should end up crispy and somewhat golden.

Transfer the pastry to a plate, brush with melted butter and serve.

***

Borek + Raita = bliss.

Opinion?

O.M.G.! I love Anissa Helou. I love her recipes. I love her books. I *just* ordered one more. More than anything, I love boreks. Is that plural version even right? Do I even care? All I know is that I want many a borek in my life :)

And this broccoli filling rocks! As much as I want to try out other fillings, I could just eat this forever and be satisfied!

Seriously, how can something so simple taste so fabulous?

Is this tofu craze here to stay?

Over the last few months, a lot of tofu has been cooked - marinated in a variety of sauces, sauteed with a plethora of spices, baked into crispy bars ... and pretty much every single option has been extremely palatable. I'd love to think I had something to do with it, but the truth is that tofu is the ultimate sponge! It absorbs spices so easily and then adds its own tinge - every mouthful ends up with this mishmash of flavours.

Hey, speaking of Mishmash - Shn just celebrated a year of blogging, if you haven't had a chance to check out her fabulous cakes and cooking, run there right now :)

Ok, back to tofu love ... I wanted to try something new, something different with the tofu - not the usual chunks. I started off thinking that I wanted to make some kind of fresh vegetable rolls - shredded and grated vegetables in a cabbage wrap, maybe? Hmm ... no cabbage! How about kale? Or chard? Nope! Low on greens :( Wait, there is spinach - would that work? Well, even somewhat large spinach leaves don't really make for decent rolls. Not even with toothpicks stuck into them! *sigh*


So, I had to bail on the whole rolls fantasy. Oh well! Instead, I just settled for the shredded tofu salad served over a bed of wilted spiced spinach. Guess those cabbage wraps will have to wait for another day!

Shredded Tofu Salad
Served on a bed of wilted spinach

Servings: 2

80 gms extra-firm tofu (about 1/5 of a regular block of tofu)
1 small head of broccoli
1/2 red onion
1/2 red bell pepper
1 T grated ginger
1 t sambal oelek
1 T soy sauce
1 t sesame oil or oil spray
salt

1 T vinegar
1 t cayenne pepper
10-12 fresh spinach leaves - washed and dried

Grate the tofu using a medium sized grater and set aside.
Finely dice the onion and bell pepper.
Shred the broccoli into small pieces.
Heat the oil in a wok and saute the onions and ginger till browned.
Add the broccoli and bell pepper and saute for 2-3 minutes.
Stir in the tofu along with salt to taste.
Add the sambal oelek and soy sauce and saute for about 4-5 minutes till the tofu starts to brown.

In the meantime, pour the vinegar into a saucepan and heat on low.
Stir in the cayenne pepper.
Add the spinach leaves and cook covered, on low for a couple of minutes till the spinach is partly wilted.

Serve the tofu salad on a bed of wilted spinach leaves.




Good?

This is my absolute favourite way to eat tofu! Once shredded, it totally sucked in all the flavours and was super moist and juicy. The spinach actually ended up being a great touch - the vinegary leaves were a perfect foil for the salad.