Pad Thai Party!

Woo pad thai party for two! This is the second time this year I've thrown one, once again the turn out is terrible. The last one was around April if I remember correctly? It was a pad thai party with sizzler cheese toast for afterwards since I learnt the recipe for that too. I think only like three of my friends dropped by ):. Dr H, JGirl and Taka. None of my usual food party friends dropped by like Shishi and Yanikins, they were all either doing stuff and so a lot of food was thrown at people to be disposed of.

An unusual side effect was that for the month after, we kept having to go to Thai places with friends cause they missed out. We went out for Yanikin's birthday at Chat Thai in Market Square and he ordered Pad Thai. Dr H promptly ate parts of Yanikin's and said that mine was better. Apparently I got rave reviews from my dad, Dr H's parents and JGirl's parents, all of whom ate their children's pad thai before they woke up from their food comas.

"I found it in my fridge and I don't know where it came from but it was delicious."
Direct quote from Dr H's parents

Same as last time, I kept getting hassled at work for not inviting people to my pad thai night. Apparently I keep picking days when people aren't working, or just started working or days they have stuff on. That's not my fault guys, that's your own stuff you have to deal with and maybe you should buy my ingredients like I suggested and then I could hold a pad thai party at your house? Last time the damage was about, $30? I'm poor but even that's not bad, considering I filled 10 large Chinese food containers with pad thai. This isn't including all the stuff we ate on the day.

Stuff I actually had to go out and buy:
Woolies - blue elephant brand pad thai noodles x 2 - $2.50?
1kg Chicken drumsticks - $4
1kg fish tofu - $10
500g prawn skewers I found in my freezer - possibly $6
1/2kg of bean sprouts - I have no idea what this costs, but I'm going to guess $1-4? Since 250g is $1.50?
Garlic chives from my dad's garden

Pantry staples:
Actual garlic cloves
Onions
Roasted Peanuts
Eggs
My pad thai sauce made from tamarind, fish sauce and sugar that I had in my house


J. from work suggested that I drop by and give her some leftovers for her dinner at work. I'm pretty sure I just laughed at her and said, I didn't like her enough to do that, since I don't drive and G, who is coming over, wouldn't be near there when she was going home either. J. also laughed and said that she was thinking of saying, "I would totally drive all the way to your house to give you pad thai leftovers!" Then she also realised that she probably wouldn't and also didn't like me enough to do that. I'm pretty sure I laughed before saying, THIS IS A GAME OF LIES, and stormed off, to her immense amusement. We're good friends, J and I.

Yeah. Friends.

Anyway, this time I've only got eggs and chicken as my main proteins for my pad thai. I've also played around with the sauce recipe too, since I didn't feel like it was sour enough last time. I've also made a new tag called, "Terrible Instructions," the terrible instructions tag will be used whenever I leave terrible Asian instructions to do things. Simple enough right? The Asian was left out in case people become offended and forget I'm Vietnamese. I'll use this tag for when I make food according to Terrible Asian instructions, which are terrible, vague cooking instructions where everything is, "enough for one handful of beans," "enough oil to coat the pan," or even "use three bowls of the small bowls that we use for rice, filled with flour".

The International Standardised Measurement:
1 Rice Bowl, equal to 1 European/American/Australia cup

What are these vague bullshit instructions. Their quantities are utterly subjective to their local kitchen, illogical and their determinations of what should be an approximate amount are eye gouging inducing terrible. This is the kind of instruction I grew up with, its no wonder I'm acopic at life and baking. My father would hate going to beaches with people cause the instruction would basically be:

"We're heading to the beach."
"Which beach is that?"
"That one we go to all the time."

One of the beaches we go to

Another beach we go to

We go to this one, alllllllll the time

Dude, we were here just last week

This one?

He hated that, especially since we never drove in front and we frequented about six beaches, some of which we had to take a ferry to go to. Those pictures are all from the beaches I even remember the names of, there's probably more that I don't know the name of, major points if you can name all these popular beaches. So he raised us not to do it. However when it comes driving instructions:

"YOU HAVE TO BE MORE OVER HERE!" Whilst pointing vaguely.
"WHICH WAY IS HERE." Shouted the Asian daughter.
"HERE, HERE." Car stalls/car curbs it/angry car honks.
"GET OUT OF THE CAR, I'LL SHOW YOU HOW TO DO IT."

I TOLD YOU TO GO OVER HERE.
Obviously not my dad, he has a moustache.

My dad wasn't the only one though, my mother did the same thing. I once asked her how to make congee. "You put the chicken in a pot. Fill it up with water. Cook it. Put rice in and cook it. Put salt in and that's congee." My aunt laughed at her, and my mother couldn't understand why she was laughing.

Pad Thai Sauce:

Pad thai sauce

Uses: Pad thai. Duh. Stinking out your neighbours.

Ingredients:
Fish Sauce
White Sugar, palm sugar is a pain to melt
Tamarind pulp in hot water. Alternatively tamarind soup base or a tamarind concentrate is fine too.
Hot chilli powder

I figure the same proportions as Vietnamese Nuoc Mam cham. So 1:1:1 for sugar, tamarind pulp and fish sauce. Then balance to taste. Mine is noticeably sour, with a salt hit and a bit of sweetness to it, with a final back burn of chilli. For the purpose of this recipe, we'll say a cup. I have no actual idea of what measurement I used, I literally used a ladle that I later found out contained 40mls. No idea how much tamarind pulp water I ended up using.

Instructions:

1. Soak the tamarind pulp in a tiny amount of hot water, basically the same amount of water as your fish sauce/sugar. Don't worry if you add too much.

Tamarind in block form. 

2. Measure out your other stuff
3. Using clean hands, squeeze the pulp and seeds off the water and mix until its an oddly warm and slightly thick mixture. It should be face wrinkly sour and have that distinctive tamarind tang. Strain and discard pulp.

The seeds and pulp

3.a See if you can measure out that much, if it looks like a ridiculously huge amount you can do what I did and evaporate some of it off in a large saucepan. More surface area, faster evaporation ; )

Yes. Yes, burn my pretty.

4. Mix all three together! It should have distinct notes of all three, sour, salty and sweet.
5. Add chilli powder to taste. Mine was weak, so I added about a tablespoon.

Noting that this mixture of ingredients doesn't make a particularly dark sauce when cooking. I read some recipes that added some tomato sauce, or paprika for colouring purposes. I will experiment with that later. In my earlier attempts at pad thai making, I actually cooked off this sauce for a thicker consistency, cooking fish sauce should only be done during the week day, in a well ventilated space and wafted into the direction of your enemies. The syrupy state of the tamarind pulp in this recipe was similar to my other attempt but I still felt it was too thin a sauce.

Pad Thai Recipe:

Pad thai.

Uses: creates jealously in friends, fresh to order party food, dinner

Ingredients:
400-500g chicken - I used the meat off two large maryland pieces, the drumstick and thigh portion
250g of pad thai or banh pho noodles. They're exactly the same thing, they're both made of rice flour, salt and water and the same length and width.
100g bean sprouts
20-50g garlic chives, normal chives can be substituted, but food snobs like me will know the difference.
An egg for each portion you cook off.
One large onion, cut into whatever shape you fancy for noodles
4-6 diced cloves of garlic
Smashed up peanuts
Portion of the above pad thai sauce.

Assorted stuff you need:
A large saucepan or wok
Lots of small bowls to store ingredients
Cooking oil
A square of folded up paper towel and a plate to rest it on
A ladle for getting out the sauce
****A gas burner or induction stove top***
Just stop reading this recipe if you don't have a gas burner or induction stove top. Fire works well too.

Optional ingredients:
Fish tofu
Raw prawns
Pickled radish
Dried prawns
Squid
Octopus
Banana flower
Chillis
Whatever protein floats your boat man

Instructions:

Prepare everything ahead of cooking or you will regret it. This isn't a recipe you can prepare things as you go. Have it all set up and ready for cooking.

1. Cut the chicken into smallish lumps, 2-3cm bite sized pieces. Place in a bowl of water with about 2 tablespoons of salt so it can brine up. Brining helps makes things deliciously infused with salt as well as tender. Place in fridge until ready to cook
2. Cook the noodles in boiling water until just before al dente. They'll cook more in the heat. Drain off and continue prepping.
3.. Cut the onion up into either large wedges or thin rings, depending on how much you like the appearance of onion in your noodles. Place in a bowl or plate
4. Finely dice all the garlic. Place in a bowl or plate.
5. Wash the bean sprouts and place on a plate.
6. Wash, trim and cut the garlic/ chives into10cmish pieces, put it on the same plate as the bean sprouts
7. Gather your eggs and a spare bowl to crack and mix them into
8. Drain off the chicken and place it in a different bowl. Arrange all the ingredients so that onions and garlic are closest to you, then the proteins, the sauce, the noodles and finally the bean sprouts/chives.

Super important set up!

ACTUAL COOKING INSTRUCTIONS VITAL TO NOODLES

1. Turn your gas/stove/whatever onto high, wait until it get hot to the palm of your hand
2. Season your wok or saucepan with a small amount of oil. Pour the oil everywhere, and then wipe it off. Let it steam for a few seconds and then pour some more oil in for cooking.
3. Allow the oil to heat up and throw in about 30g of onions, don't measure it out. Just grab a handful
4. Once the onions have started smelling delicious/softened slightly, throw in about a tablespoon of diced garlic

5. Keep stirring until the garlic browns, throw in your proteins. The longer it takes, the earlier it should go in. Chicken in this recipe goes in first.
6. Once the chicken is just sealed throw in about one ladleful 40-50 mls, 1/4th of a cup of pad thai sauce
7. Throw in your egg, in a dry/clean well, mix like a madman. Cook until dryish. Alternatively, swap 6 and 7 around.

8. Throw in your seafood. Prawns will literally take seconds, as well squid, octopus and fish tofu just needs to be reheated
9. Throw in handfuls of bean sprouts, garlic chives and one fistful of noodles.
10. Toss briefly until coated. Add further sauce, but beware the pale colour. No one wants soggy pad thai noodles.
11. Dump on a plate once the garlic chives have wilted, garnish with crushed peanuts.
12. Repeat 3-11 until all the ingredients are used up. Don't attempt to make a huge batch, you won't be able to handle it and it won't be tasty.
^ all the above will take about 3-7 minutes on a high temperature. Or about 5-10 minutes on a high medium. That's why its vital to arrange things beforehand.

After the pad thai party. G and I went to the dog park where a rip roaring good time was had by all. Dexter, G. and A.'s dog, fell in love with Ben, a giant white German Shepard to everyone's amusement. Super thanks to G. who didn't tell my dog park crush that I had a crush on him, although she knew who it was once she knew who his dog was. Hahaha, the voice of discretion.