Sunday, June 24, 2007

Pad Thai with Tofu



Started with the Brooklyn Pad Thai (VwaV) recipe but made some modifications along the way (note the lack of bean sprouts). It was yummy! I'll have to jot down my modified version one of these days soon.

The key to stirfried rice noodles is NEVER to boil the noodles, just soak in hot water for about 25-30 minutes, drain and then stirfry. The noodles will seem like they are too hard after soaking, but believe me, they will soften up when you stirfry them. The first time I ever made rice noodles for a stirfry I boiled them and they of course turned to mush when I fried them. This was many years ago when I was a horrible HORRIBLE cook!

Anyway, I never cook thai food, but good vegan thai food here is hard to find. Maybe next week I'll tackle something from the book Buddha's Table. I have a ton of cookbooks that I never use. I'm going to try a new recipe from one of them each week.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the recipe from VwaV, right?

I need to cook again. I have enough pasta left for one more "pasta with marinara" and then it is back on track for me.

What do you make when you absolutely don't feel like making anything at all?

ms. veganorama said...

You mean, spaghetti with jarred sauce right? :p Naw, I hear you. It's hard to get up the motivation to cook when you live alone. When I was living alone and working so many hours I would make a lot of "pasta tosses" or "chickpea patties" which just take a little longer than "pasta with marinara".

For pasta tosses I'd cook up some penne and when it was maybe 3/4 way done I'd throw in some frozen peas or frozen broccoli. Then I'd drain and heat up some olive oil, hot chili flakes, salt & pepper and (jarred) minced garlic and then toss in the penne and broccoli.

For chickpea patties I would just drain a can of chickpeas, mash them up and add in some cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika. Mix in some unsweetened soymilk and some flour until it held together. Split into 4 flat patties and pan fry on each side until crispy and eat with some bagged salad greens & dressing. You can throw that in a pita too.

And on really really lazy days, I'd just make toast and peanut butter!

ms. veganorama said...

Forgot... on other really lazy days I would just open up a can of beans and throw that onto some salad greens with dressing.

Anonymous said...

Toast and almond butter sounds about my speed lately! I actually like to cook, and having always lived alone, it hasn't bothered me (esp. because i love leftovers) to "cook for one". But it is one of those cycles - i'm feeing run down from trying to do too much, so I don't eat well, and then I feel worse because I'm not fueling up very well.... you know how that goes.

Still, toast....now if only I'd put the no-knead bread to ferment last night!

These are good ideas for things I can do with little effort and (generally) random stuff from the fridge. Thanks for the ideas! :)

(er, and yeah, totally pasta with jarred sauce! :D )

Ariix said...

So, when you say not to boil rice noodles for stirfry, is that just the typical asian type of rice noodles, or even the "brown rice pasta" type? I'm curious because V and I just learned last week or so that you can boil brown rice noodles for 2 minutes, turn off the heat and cover for 20 minutes, and they're done (and they don't get stuck together or mushy or anything like they often do!), and this seems like a similar idea...

Also, I want some pad thai now! ;)

ms. veganorama said...

ariix, yeah, the typical asian rice noodles. I guess it might work if you boil for a minute and then turn off the heat but the hot water thing works extremely well. After 25-30 mins the noodles should be pliable but still extremely al dente (so much so that you would not be able to eat it as is). It softens quite quickly at that point when stirfrying.

I know some people will pour boiling water over the noodles, but I just used hot tap water and a big mixing bowl to soak the noodles.

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