Slippery Thai Noodles with Seafood

My cooking goals in Newfoundland are to cook as much seafood as possible. With that in mind I went in search of a Thai recipe in Wandee Lee's Simply Thai Cooking. We'd been eating a ton of rice and I figured noodles would be a nice change. There's something really gourmet about rice noodles in this dish, which is hilarious because they're so cheap, and even easier to cook than regular egg-based pasta noodles. Unlike last time I didn't feel like making the noodles from scratch because I like the air-like quality of the rice stick noodles you buy in the store and rehydrate.

The recipe calls for squid, which I love to see in a recipe because it's so affordable and also so delicious when done well. The recipe also calls for shrimp, so you can afford to splurge a bit more on higher quality shrimp since the squid is cheap. I went to look for squid but for reason no one had any that day (like my sea smelts that never came to be). They did have lots of shrimp choice.

Oh! An aside on shrimp: The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is in the course of destroying a lot of shrimp, oyster and fish waters. Some of the best seafood from the US comes from those waters. Now, I don't know how I actually feel about this, because according to my trusted sustainable seafood guide, the only fish they list as sustainable coming from those waters is mackerel. Some types of shrimp and snapper are sort of sustainable, but others are very much not. I'm sure, however, that more than three types of fish are coming from that area. The oysters are listed as fine, but are categorized by region under "worldwide".

So my shrimp choice were the tiny frozen Newfoundland shrimp. I have absolutely no idea if they're sustainable. Almost certainly not since they're from Newfoundland. I won't even get into the latest Newfoundland crab fiasco...there's no end to the trouble, except to say that the fishery has subsequently closed for the season.

Anyway, I bought shrimp, and then I figured Newfoundland was the only place you could buy 'chowder mix' in a supermarket. Pre-cut up pieces of cod, Atlantic salmon and squid mixed with baby shrimp and a few scallops. Anywhere else in the country this would sell for a small fortune. Here it's not bad. It's also certainly not sustainable. Alas...I kind of liked the idea of a few scallops and a few pieces of cod, etc. So I bought some. So much for principles.

8 oz. rice noodles (this is half a normal package. I used the whole package, which meant I ended up with a pretty bland dish. In my family sometimes that's a good thing. So I just added my Guizhou Chile Paste to my plate, sat back and enjoyed the Sizhuan peppercorn high).
1 lb mix of scallops, shrimp, cod and salmon (or choose your favourite fish. Squid is a good choice. The recipe says 8 oz shrimp plus 4 oz squid sliced the squid into 1" rings but that seems huge to me. You could wear that as a gaudy bracelet. Think of it as a Thai chastity belt around your wrist. The smell would ward off unwanted acquaintances)
1 bunch of broccoli
A few leaves of bok choy or pak choi
A handful of snow peas (remove the strings of the peas. I kind of try to peel the edges by breaking off the top and bottom and pulling. You can skip the step but you'll be spitting out a lot of fibres while you eat if you don't. Very unattractive, but this is not a date meal. Especially not with your squid chastity belt and all)
2 tbsp oil
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce (find one without MSG and a million preservatives if you can. Caramel colour? Corn syrup? Really?)
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce (or tamari)
1 cup water
fresh cilantro for garnish

The recipe says to soak the noodles in lots of cold water for one hour. Then add them to 3 cups of boiling water for 30 seconds, drain, and add to the stir-fry at the end. Yeah, that didn't work. Maybe I should have cooked it longer than 30 seconds. I definitely should have tested a noodle before draining it. Pasta 101. So my noodles ended up tough. I think pouring boiling water over them instead of cold is another option. Leave them in the water until you need them. You can also make the whole package of noodles and have a very saucy meal by doubling the sauce ingredients. Seems a waste to make this meal and have no leftovers. You'll definitely be craving it the next day.

Prepare all the ingredients before turning on the heat. This recipe goes quick:
Slice the squid and shell the shrimp. Mine came in the mix so they were pre-shelled. I've also seen Thai dishes cooked with the shells on, but, like the peas, it's a nuisance to take them off while you're eating. Your choice. Like cooking chicken with the bone-in, it probably gives more flavour.

Chop the broccoli and tear off the pak choi greens (baby bok choi can be left as is).

Chop the garlic. In a small bowl combine the fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, soy sauce, water and black pepper.

Dissolve the teaspoon of cornstarch in a tablespoon of water (the recipe says to do this later, but later you're rushed)

Now the fun part. Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok on high heat!! I never get to write "high heat". It's kind of the same rush as doing something forbidden. I know, I'm a huge geek. I know.

When the oil starts to smoke, add the garlic and stir frantically for 30 seconds. When it starts to burn, add a tbsp of water. Then add the seafood and cook another 30 seconds. Add another tbsp of water as necessary. Add the broccoli, peas and bok choy and stir for 30 seconds. Add the combined sauce mixture, reduce the heat to medium, and let the mixture cook for 3-4 minutes. This feels so long! Whatever will you do with all the time?

Two things: Put 3 cups of water on to boil for the noodles (unless you soaked them in boiling water. Then they're probably fine). Then stir you cornstarch/water mixture.

Add the cornstarch to the stir-fry and turn the heat to medium-low. It feels like the stir-fry is slowly dying, turning down the heat slowly instead of up. Cook 1-2 minutes until the sauce is thickened a little. Mine didn't thicken so much. Didn't feel like it, I suppose. Remove the stir-fry from the heat. Don't cover! It'll keep cooking the seafood. Over-cooked scallop is not good. Probably it's already over-cooked. If I had sashimi grade salmon I certainly wouldn't even want it cooked all the way through. Next time I think I will cook the fish for the prescribed 30 seconds and then remove the shrimp, scallops, and anything I didn't want to cook through from the pan, while I cook the vegetables and add the sauce. Then I'd put them back in when I added the cornstarch and let them cook for only 2 minutes while the sauce thickened. Yes, that's a better idea.

So now either stick the rice noodles in your separate pot of boiling water for 30 seconds, or until they're tender, or place your pre-tenderized and drained noodles directly onto a serving platter. Pour the contents of the wok straight on top and garnish with some chopped cilantro. Also a dollop of excruciatingly delicious chile paste.

Mango Chicken: "Simply Thai Cooking" by Wandee Young and Byron Ayanoglu

I have two recipes for mango chicken. This is not my favourite, but it let me work on the insane task of chopping vegetables and meat into properly-sized pieces. This stands in opposition to my slice-and-dice method that usually wins out for meals that are cooked in a wok. It's from a new cookbook (new to me) that I spent hours researching on the internet for a gift. When I buy a cookbook for someone else, it must be the best. Okay, when I buy a cookbook in general I want it to be the best. In this case, the best Thai. Is it? It's certainly not bad.

Simply Thai Cooking by Wandee Young & Byron Ayanoglu

Criteria:
1. Authenticity of recipes
2. Availability of ingredients
3. Facility of Instructions

There's no point getting a Thai cookbook where all the recipes are easy to make but you never once are supposed to use tamarind paste or fish sauce. Though some Thai cooks put ketchup in their pad thai, I was looking for the less-sweet rendition of the recipe. Success! I'm not a huge fan of the 1/4 cup of oil that Young calls for in her version, even if she does justify it as necessary to keep the noodles from sticking together. Young is actually the owner of Toronto-based Thai restaurants Young Thailand, and owned Toronto's first Thai restaurant in 1980. She scraped and saved and now runs multiple eateries in the downtown area. The cookbook's recipes are 'adjusted' to North American sensibilities by Young and her co-author to minimize oil, salt and heat, but the rest is just as it should be. An added plus of the cookbook is that all the recipes take under an hour (North American sensibility again? Or traditional Thai speed cooking?), including chopping time (as long as you're good at straining soaked tamarind) and they're generally very healthy, even if they're not low in fat. My personal favourite Thai cookbook will always be Hot Sour Salty Sweet, by the same authors of my Chinese cookbook Beyond the Great Wall, but it's much less accessible for the average cook. It's also very heavy, very expensive, but very beautiful. If I'd had fresh chiles instead of dried chiles I would have tried Young's "Young Thailand Chile Sauce", but Guizhou won out. Fortunately, these things come bottled for those who wish to purchase instead of cough up capsaicin (chile pepper heat) for an hour.

600g chicken breast
2 mangos, slightly under-ripe
2 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
8 tbsp water
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp chile paste (REALLY depends on the heat of your chile paste. You may need anywhere from 1 tsp-4 tbsp)
4 tbsp lime juice
1 red pepper, cut into 1/4-inch strips
120g roasted unsalted cashews, optional
Fresh coriander, for garnish

The chopping was the only tricky thing about this recipe. Like I do for any wok (or Indian) recipe, I got all the ingredients chopped and ready to go before I turned on the heat for the frying pan. With my over-abundance of time, I decided to actually chop the chicken properly so it would fry evenly. The instructions for the chicken are clear:

"Strips that are 1/4 inch thick, 2 inches long and 1 inch wide"

Made sense, but chicken breasts do not come in rectangles, and the recipe said nothing about pounding the chicken to the correct thickness or trimming edges. So some of my chicken pieces were beautiful squares with the proper thickness, some were beautiful squares with beer bellies, and some were fit but a bit drunk (falling/leaning to one side...). Young did recommend freezing the chicken for 15 minutes because that would make it easier to slice, but my over-abundance of time made me feel like I could make a go of it without the freezing.

Then the mango. 1/4 inch thick, long strips. How long? Strips which way? How do you get the pit out and the skin removed perfectly before you slice it? Or do you slice it in the skin? What I decided to do was slice the mango into three pieces lengthwise (the middle held the pit, so I was really just removing the sides). Then cut slices 1/4 inch apart through the side pieces' flesh (again, lengthwise) to the skin, push the flesh out of the skin (turn the mango piece from concave to convex) and slice the strips off with a knife. That worked okay for the side pieces, but for the rest of the mango it turned into a massacre. All you can do is try to make strips instead of slivers or mango mush. There's no way to get all your strips the same, and I'm sure Young would have explained that if she'd had enough room on the recipe page. Not wanting to produce mango mush is why the recipe called for slightly under-ripe mangos. If you slice a fully ripe mango you'll end up with a smoothie instead of a stir-fry. Delicious, but probably not dinner. The under-ripe ones also are a bit more tangy, whereas ripe, sweet ones break down into the dish, losing their pungency.

I got the water ready and placed all the other ingredients next to the stove. Then I heated the vegetable oil on high until it almost started to smoke. The recipe originally called for 1/2 cup of oil! That's ridiculous. There are no noodles that need to remain separate, and 30 seconds after adding the garlic to the oil (the first ingredient) you add 1/2 cup of water, so it's not like you need the oil to prevent something from burning. It's not a salad dressing, so you're not really diluting the vinegars. Vegetable oil won't add more flavour than water, and it has to be vegetable oil because it's being heated as such a high heat (well, it doesn't have to be, but it can't be olive oil or other oils that burn. So nothing flavourful). So I cut back the oil substantially. No one complained, including the oil. The only thing to keep in mind is that the garlic is basically supposed to deep fry in the oil, so when you add the garlic you can get all the oil to one side of the pan and cook the garlic in it, trying to replicate the effect of having all the called-for oil in the pan.

When I added the water and chicken to the sauté-ing garlic, I didn't quite know what Young meant by "until the chicken is springy". Maybe a spring chicken?...Not exactly the same thing, I guess. Fortunately, she said "about 2 minutes", so I went with that, instead of making energy and lifestyle judgments for my chicken slices.

Then in went the soy sauce (I'd normally use tamari to get the preservatives and wheat out of the dish, but regular soy or reduced-sodium soy are fine) and sugar for 1 minute. Then the chili paste and lime juice for 1 minute more (I had made my Guizhou Chile Paste again using Thai Birds Eye chiles. More on that later, but suffice it to say that I shouldn't have added as much as I did - even 1 tsp).

Then the mango pieces and red pepper for one more minute, followed by the cashews for a final minute. Grand total cooking time of 6 minutes, 30 seconds! 7 minutes if it takes you time to actually pour things, which, of course, it does. This is why it's so important to have your ingredients ready. If you're spending time measuring things while your garlic cooks for an extra minute, it's going to over-brown, or burn if you reduced the oil content. The lime juice will lose its flavour and the red peppers will be soft, instead of still a little crunchy. If your mangos were not already mush, they will be by now. You could also turn down the heat after adding the chicken, to make everything cook more slowly, but then it's not a traditional Thai way of cooking. The goal is to cook everything as little as possible, not to stew it.

To serve the chicken put a heap of rice (steamed or boiled, thai, jasmine, sticky, basmati, whatever you want) on a plate and a scoop of the stir-fry to the side topped with fresh coriander leaves.