Tom Kha Gai, Pad Kra-Pow Gai, and Art

 Nothing like a good visit from relatives to aid in the realignment efforts.  And it was a good excuse to make Tom Kha Gai – a recipe from my last Thai cooking class – a dish I always enjoy no matter where it be served.  So much better in my own home. 

Creativity in the kitchen complimented creativity with acrylics.  Color and art and good food -  I’m talking reds and blues and oranges and greens inspired from walls and from fridge.  My house guests this weekend also appreciated a good color wheel -- and art-fest 2011 P-ville style was inspired.  Paints were augmented.  Canvases and cheapo brushes made their way into the shopping cart.  The wine and rum was poured and the art flowed.   I won’t say we can go out and make millions on our artistic efforts, but it was a great time.  We each got a canvas and went to town.

 

My inspiration began as a sunflower, but ended more as a wacky sun.  Things just sort of evolved, but we all went abstract and so it didn’t really matter.   

Tonight I share both our art and our recipe for Tom Kha Gai.  Extra bonus recipe for Pad Kra-Pow Gai.   Both really great dishes – but you may have to work a little bit for the ingredients for the Pad Kra-Pow Gai.  It is worth the effort.

Tom Kha Gai (literally soup, galangal, chicken – we know it as coconut soup with chicken and lemon grass and galangal)

16 oz. chicken that is cut up into small bite-sized pieces.  Marinate this for 10-15 minutes with a Tbsp. of either corn starch or tapioca flour, ¼ tsp. salt, ¼ tsp. pepper, ½ tsp garlic powder (or 1 tsp. fresh chopped garlic).

1 can coconut milk

400 mL water (about 1 3/4 cups) vary depending on how thick you want it… the higher the coconut to water ratio, the thicker the soup

2 inch piece of Galangal (Thai ginger) peeled and sliced very thinly

1 stalk lemon grass cut into 2 inch long chunks and then bruised by banging with back of knife

1 medium onion chopped coarsely

1 can of mushrooms (if using canned mushrooms put in early, if using fresh mushrooms put in at end)

4 Kaffir lime leaves

½ Tbsp. sugar

4 Tbsp. fish sauce

1 Tbsp. lime juice

Optional additions include thai chili pepper (dried hot pepper) to taste or 1 Tbsp. chili paste in soybean oil.

Bring water and coconut milk to a boil and then add sliced galangal and lemon grass.  If you used canned mushrooms, add now, too.  If you are using fresh mushrooms, save until the very end and barely cook.  Tear lime leaves into little ½ cm2 bits and add with sugar, lime juice, and fish sauce.  Let this simmer for about 5 minutes and give it a taste.  Adjust with more lime, sugar, or fish sauce depending on what you feel it may need.   Add onions just before you add the chicken and then it will only take about 15 more minutes before being done.  Give it another taste before serving to see if it needs more sweet, sour, or salty to your liking.  Anywhere along the way add the optional chili peppers…..   The chili peppers add a great dimension and so I highly recommend them.

Garnish with cilantro and chives and more chili powder for those who want it.

Pad Kra-Pow Gai (Stir fried, basil, chicken quite literally – or more informally:  stir fry chicken with basil leaves in house spicy sauce)

16 oz. chicken ground or chopped into very small pieces

4 Tbsp. oil

3 garlic cloves minced

2 Tbsp. oyster sauce (I find oyster sauce in general optional, so do what you will with this one)

2 Tbsp. fish sauce  

1Tbsp. Thai Seasoning Sauce (Golden Mountain Brand ) – this adds a smoky quality – if you skip this one, you’ll really know it…..

1 Tbsp. Thai thick sweet sauce or thick black soy sauce – this adds both sweet and salty and so you’ll need to compensate with both if you skip this one

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 onion sliced or chunked – I  prefer slightly larger bite-sized chunks

 2 bell peppers of any color (I dig the red with any other, but definitely at least one red) chopped coarsely

1 large bunch of Thai basil coarsely chopped (grow it if you can… it is really hard to find in the grocery store and is different for sure from the ‘regular’ basil)

 Hot thai chili peppers to your liking…. This dish should be hot, so load it up – it can handle it, can you?

On medium high, cook garlic briefly before adding chicken and all the liquid ingredients.  This dish goes quickly, so basically add everything up to the onion and and pepper and basil.   Add the onions and peppers and saute to the point of still crunchy and then add the basil.    Serve over rice and ENJOY!   This is one of my Favorites…. It is worth the effort for the weird ingredients.

Hope you like it, too.  

Little Brown Beauties - Myorific!

Little Brown Bats just last night made their first appearance for me in 2011.  They showed up one day earlier last year according to my records, though, my methods are far from scientific and more than likely, I missed them the night before as I was out feasting at a delicious Spanish Tapas joint until well after dark.  I go out and check periodically at dusk and those checks become more frequent as it starts getting warmer.  I look forward to the bats' arrival every year and last night was perfect:  I was grilling out on my porch, sipping a French Gimlet, and swooooop - there they were.  Two years ago, their first appearance was in April, but again, hard to tell with my lackluster methods when they really start flying.

These little cuties (scientific name: Myotis lucifugus) have made a home somewhere west of me and do a nightly migration to the river which is east of me.  Every year I vow to go find their day-roosts, but have yet to do so with any success.... but all dusk long they flit and dart overhead on a consistently west to east path en route to their crepuscular feeding grounds.  Much to my cat's entertainment, a few have wandered into my house by mistake, but they are quickly escorted safely out an open window and are off again erratically hawking bugs as they go. The image to the right is courtesy the US Fish and Wildlife Service and I have to say, they are much cuter dodging back and forth in the sky at dusk.  

I worry every year now that they won't show up.  White-nose syndrome is rapidly wiping out communities of bats in the northeast to the tune of over 75% killed since the winter of 2006-2007 when it was first noticed in an upstate NY hibernaculum.    This fungus grows on the skin of the bats and renders them more active in the winter thus causing them to use up reserves and starve before food is available;  and to date, the pathogen has moved as far south as Tennessee and is expected to be in California within a few years.  Our biggest hope is that there are bats out there with strong enough immune systems to ward off the fungus.  Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a heart-breaking article in May of 2009 detailing the bats' and other potential extinctions and I highly recommend reading it if you can get your hands on it. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/25/090525fa_fact_kolbert     If we lose our bats, what a travesty that would be.  I cannot even fathom it.

But here they are, these important players in the ecosystem - at an appropriate time - just as my daffodils are blooming.   I also saw my first forsythia in boom today (that may be a little premature!).  There are definitely bugs in the air ready to be eaten and bees during the day going about their pollinating business.  I am happy to see the bats.  It is surely a good sign.

Spring Dishwasher

I’m sitting on my porch on an unexpectedly free afternoon as I wait for my car to be fixed.  Soaking up the sunshine, I’m halfheartedly working as I listen to the birds sing.  I can almost hear (over the buzz of free spirts on motorcycles) the spring bulbs pushing out more and more leaf.  Daffodils are about ready to pop out their heads and the 70 degree weather tomorrow will surely further encourage that.

My kitchen renovations call….   I have ordered a dishwasher and am trying to figure out the sink and cabinet scenario for my little 60 inch space.  Advice?  This is a temporary fix as I try to build bank.  My major renovations require me to knock down a wall and get serious about tackling some scary electrical issues and so temporary fixes are good – especially when they involve a dishwasher.  Ahhh  let me say it one more time:  Dishwasher.  A local company indicates they will cut an old slate chalkboard into a countertop for me (I’ve squirreled a few away in the storeroom at work) and I hope to get some cheap paintable cabinets from somewhere – and a farm-house sink from IKEA.     My Beautiful old sink will find its new home in the half bath.   I have been without a dishwasher for so long I can barely even remember what it is like to own one....  I'm ready to be reminded.

And so while spring rushes in like a old friend who has come to visit, undoubtedly, it is time for change. 

Gai Pad Khing

Time to turn the clock forward tonight – springing into the future – whatever that future may hold.  Seems pretty ambiguous these days as folks swirl around me in their own chaotic worlds.  I’m finding this year to be challenging.  I sought stability today and always find it in the garden and the kitchen.  I spent time in both this spring-like day and am better for it.  The garden looks much less like a tornado hit it after this crazy winter, and now my kitchen is a wreck.  I’ll take that trade.

This is a Week 3 Thai Class recipe and it is a winner.  I just cooked it tonight with a few modifications, but I’ll give you the original because when we had that in class it was awesome…  some ingredients are hard to find, though, so I’ll give you my version from tonight, too, because that wasn’t bad either… not bad at all.

Gai Pad Khing:  Chicken stir fry ginger - quite literally.  In a slightly more eloquent translation:  Stir fry chicken, ginger, and onion in delicate sauce.   Yum.  If you like ginger and you like chicken, this is the dish for you.

Gai Pad Khing

4 T oil (again, any kind – I used canola tonight, but pick your poison)

2 lbs chicken breast sliced into 1-1½ inch bite-sized pieces (marinade for at least 15 minutes in ¼ tsp salt, ¼ tsp pepper, ½ tsp chopped or powdered garlic and 2 T tapioca or corn starch, and half the oyster sauce if you are using oyster sauce)

½ T soybean paste

2 T sugar

½ C julienned ginger

1 C black fungus (if dry soak in water for an hour or two and use hydrated)

4 garlic cloves minced

2 T oyster sauce

2 T Thai fish sauce

½ tsp ground pepper (white)

2 medium onions coarsely chunked

4 scallions roughly chopped

Marinade chicken.  Heat oil to super hot – add garlic and then quickly add chicken.  Cook until about half done and then add oyster sauce, fish sauce, soybean paste, sugar, pepper.    Add the ginger and mushrooms and toss for a few minutes until the mushrooms start looking cooked. Add onions closer to the end as you want them slightly crunchy and not mushy (translucent is good).  Add scallions at the end.  Toss to make sure it is all hot and delish.  Add a little water along the way if the sauce is too thick and viscous.  You want the sauce a little loose to serve with rice.

My version was a little different tonight and it was still good:

    I did not use Oyster sauce…. Or soybean paste.  I used baby sliced crimini mushrooms instead of the black fungus…   I added only 2 tsp fish sauce and then with the ginger, also added a lemon grass stalk cut into 3-inch chunks and pounded.  I also added 2 Kaffir lime leaves slightly crushed between my fingers.  I have green brined peppercorns and so tossed in a tablespoon or so of those, but if you don’t have those, I would suggest a bit more pepper to compliment the heat of the ginger.    In the end I garnished with cilantro.    You will want to add more salt to the marinade or to the dish itself as it cooks because the oyster sauce and the fish sauce both add salt and if you reduce those, you need to compensate.

 I think a wedge of lime would be delightful as a garnish for this one.  In general, I think this dish is pretty flexible and easy to modify.  It is only slightly hot due to the ginger.

Enjoy!

Rain

Spring is springing, but grey skies dominate and inches inches inches of rain fall. Perhaps the time-change will help next weekend (doubt).  Or flowers blooming sometime soon (hopefully).  Or something (probably).  Dwell less and live more.   It is a good goal.  I don't want to waste my time.  The question is:  what is wasted?  what is not?   Still working on that.
  
Black vultures own the skies as turkey v's wobble along. I seek skunk cabbage and still find none.  Perhaps by the time peppers need space in the garden the sun will be shining again.

More soon with lighter brighter thoughts.  Perhaps basil chicken in spicy sauce or ginger chicken or lemon grass soup or.... recipes as love letters. 

Thai Flux

Week 2 of Thai cooking class: 

I find I'm exploring the boundaries of myself as well as learning to cook some excellent Thai dishes.  I have some pretty serious vinegar aversions, as you may already know, and so wandering into a world where I am using and eating unknown ingredients found in liquids packaged in bottles that look suspiciously like condiments is very much anathema to me.  Sometimes fear rules when it shouldn't.   My healthy respect for Thai and Chinese and Japanese and Korean is based on US restaurant experiences where I have been burned, but I'm learning.  And so, with the help of lime juice and being able to explore all the ingredients in a delightfully simple recipe, I find I am actually able to cook a mean sweet and sour soup without vinegar even if in restaurants they may still be off limits.    

My boundaries are being stretched and what a good thing that is...  Fish sauce, chili paste in soy bean oil (Nam prik pao), Golden Mountain seasoning sauce, thick sweet sauce, galangal, tamarind, straw mushrooms.  I can now cook with these ingredients and not be scared of them.  Just a little knowledge can propel one so far away from their comfort zone so quickly.  How true that is in not just cooking.  Ruts are easy.  Way too easy and surprisingly unsatisfying.    

       

Tulips are up here on the east coast, as are daffodils, crocus, bulbs of all kinds, butterfly bushes sprouting new leaves, parsley perking up after being squashed by snow all winter.  Spring is on the doorstep even if it is early March.  Life seems to be in flux mode...   it may be muddy, but oddly, that's when it is easiest to get out of established ruts and form new paths even if they may be sometimes sideways.   It is good to be reminded that there is always more to life than what I may be expecting.