Pip's Plate

Here is another recipe included on the menu for my friend’s baby shower last week. Something else she loves other than grilled turkey and bacon sandwiches? Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps. We wanted to make something with a peanut dressing, so we ended up at this one.

We served this with the Watermelon Feta and Mint Salad in a little ramekin side bowl.

This is a great summer salad recipe, too. You don’t have to put it in the lettuce wraps – instead, you can just mix it up, leave it in the fridge and have it around for a satisfying and pretty healthy snack.

Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps

makes: 36 lettuce wraps (plus some leftover salad for later)

Peanut Dressing

8 large garlic cloves

1/2 cup soy sauce

2/3 cup fresh lime juice

4 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons peanut butter (smooth or chunky – it doesn’t matter)

4 teaspoons chopped peeled fresh ginger root

1 Tablespoon chili garlic sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Salad

9 oz rice stick noodles (vermicelli size – very thin)

2 pounds boneless, skinless hormone-free chicken breasts

3 medium carrots, peeled and julienned (cut into about 3-inch long pieces)

3 medium cucumbers, peeled seeded and julienned (cut into about 3-inch long pieces)

1 cup shelled edamame (soy beans)

1/3 cup coarsely chopped roasted salted peanuts

2 heads Boston or Bibb lettuce, washed

Directions

1. To make the dressing, combine garlic through pepper in a food processor. Process until smooth, then add oil to combine all ingredients. Put half aside for the salad dressing, and use the remaining half to marinate the chicken breasts.

2. Cook rice noodles according to package. When drained, cut the noodles into 3-4 inch pieces using a scissors then add to a large mixing bowl.

3. Cook the chicken. You may grill or roast the chicken. We grilled the chicken since it was such a beautiful day and we didn’t want to heat the house too much before the guests came over.

• To Grill: Heat grill to medium-high heat. Cook chicken for about 10-12 minutes, turning once.
• To Roast: Heat oven to 375 degrees. Place chicken in a roasting pan and roast for about 12-15 minutes.

When chicken is cooked through, move to a cutting board and slice. Add chicken to the noodle bowl.

4. Add carrots, cucumbers and edamame to the noodle and chicken bowl. Toss with the reserved peanut dressing.

5. To assemble, put about 1/2 cup of the noodle salad into one leave of lettuce. Serve with crushed peanuts as a garnish.

recipe adapted from epicurious

Oh, man. I randomly found this on the NY Times website – how? don’t ask I have no idea. But it sounded good so I made it the other night. I’m soooo glad I did. Rarely do I make something the first time and want to make it immediately the following day.

Looking at the number of ingredients was kind of daunting – especially when I realized I was out of my usual stock of miscellaneous Asian necessities – but it ended up being pretty easy and most excellently balanced. Flavor-punch, lip-spanking good.

I upped the spice on this quite a bit…probably not by accident either. I would say it ended up being a 4 on a scale of 1-5. It was spank-your-lips spicy.

Drunkard’s Noodles – Pad Kee Mao

serves 2-3

time: 35 minutes

Soak noodles in cold water for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Make the sauce: in a small bowl, combine 2T oyster sauce, 2T fish sauce, 2T sugar, 1T mirin, 1T rice vinegar, 1T Maggi, 1t sambal and lime juice. Mix well and set aside.

Place a large wok or skillet over high heat.

When the large pot of water is boiling, add the noodles. Cook until tender but still firm, about 8 minutes. Drain the noodles. These should be done about the time your wok-mix is done.

When the wok is hot, add oil. Add garlic, jalapeños and sliced scallion bulbs, and sauté to let flavors infuse oil, about 1 minute. Add chicken and cabbage, and stir-fry until chicken is opaque and beginning to brown, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add basil, cilantro and scallion tops. Drain noodles and add to pan. Add sauce, and toss until mixed and well-heated, 1 to 2 minutes. Serve hot, with lime wedges for squeezing over noodles.

And if that isn’t spicy enough for you, add some Sriracha for crying out loud.

Note: Maggi or Gold Mountain sauce is a brand of very strong soy sauce. It can be found at Asian markets. If you can’t find it, tamari works as a substitute.

recipe source

One thing I love about winter is that I cook. A lot. But blogging? Damn, it’s been way too long since I last posted. And the worst part? I have a whole list of things I want to write about! So look forward to a slam of new posts.

Alright, so I made this rice last week and had to make it again this week cause I liked it so much. It’s very quick – it takes about 25 minutes due to the rice needing 20 minutes to cook. But if you have leftover rice, the cook time goes down to something like  15 minutes.

You can also vary the ingredients however much you like. I’ve swapped out the fresh ginger for lemongrass (it was good, but didn’t like it as much) and I’ve made it vegetarian and with chicken (you could also substitute pork or beef or tofu). You could also introduce fresh herbs at the end for added flavor – cilantro, Thai basil, regular basil, mint, etc.

Here’s the basic recipe and you can tweak it to however you like.

Coconut Curry Fried Rice

serves: 3-4

time: 25 minutes

1 cup Thai jasmine rice

2 cups water

2-3T peanut oil, divided

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and minced

1 serrano chile or other hot chile, minced (I use the seeds for more spice – if you want it less spicy, omit the seeds)

1/2 pound shitake mushrooms, destemmed and sliced (kitchen shears work really well for destemming the mushrooms)

1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced (optional)

2T red Thai curry paste

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

1T fish sauce

1T fresh chopped cilantro

If you have a rice cooker, cook the rice in that so you don’t have to worry about it on the stove. Otherwise, put 2 cups water in a pot over high heat. Bring to a boil, add 1 cup rice, stir once, bring back to a boil and lower to a simmer. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes then fluff with a fork.

Heat 2T peanut oil in a saute pan over med-high heat. Add the garlic, ginger and serrano chiles to the pan. Stir around with a wooden spoon quickly for 30 seconds. If using chicken, add the chicken and stir around the pan to coat with the oil and seasonings. Cook the chicken for 1-2 minutes, until it’s about cooked through.

Add the shitake mushrooms, mix around the pan to coat with oil but then let sit. Moving mushrooms around a saute pan too often doesn’t give them the nice browning and also extracts a lot of moisture from the mushrooms, making your saute gooey. If you need to, add another 1T peanut oil to keep the mixture from sticking to the pan.

Cook the mushrooms for about 1 1/2 minutes, then stir around and let sit for another 1 1/2 minutes (this will give them a nice brown color and pull out the earthy flavor).

Meanwhile, whisk together the red curry paste (you can reduce this to 1T if you don’t like it spicy) and the coconut milk. Add to the saute pan and mix everything around. Scrape the bits of mushroom and chicken from the bottom of the pan (this is called deglazing) to get that flavor into the saute. When thoroughly mixed, add 1T fish sauce and mix around.

At this point, your rice should be about done. Add the rice to the saute pan and mix around, being careful to break up each piece of rice with the back of a wooden spoon. You can press the rice against the side of the pan to do this too. When the rice is completely mixed in, remove from heat and add the cilantro.

You can also serve this with grated lime zest over the top or quickly fried garlic and chiles (simply heat 1/4 cup peanut oil over med-high heat and add 3 cloves minced garlic and 1 minced serrano chile – cook the garlic and chile for 30 seconds then remove from oil and from heat. you can keep the flavored oil for later use too).

This dish would be nice served as a side to Tom Yum soup too.

Gotta love when a friend gives you a list of ingredients that sound deadly good together but no amounts. Hah! That’s when the fun begins. Just make it up and it usually turns out.

You could make these separate with something else (which was my intention) but when I started cooking the spinach, I thought “hmmm…this would be pretty good over rice instead of that sesame chicken I just put in the oven.”

Thai Fried Rice

2 T peanut oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 red chile, minced with seeds

4 oz chicken, diced (optional)

2 cups cooked jasmine rice

3 scallions, sliced lengthwise in 1 inch chunks

2 T fish sauce

cilantro

lime wedges

Heat a wok then add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and pepper. Cook for about 30 seconds or once it starts to smell really delicious (fragrant). Add the chicken and cook until seared all over, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add the rice and mix it up. Fry the rice for about 1 1/2 minutes, breaking up the rice and mixing everything together. Add the scallions and fish sauce. Mix well. Serve with cilantro and lime wedges. Add some sriracha for some more spice.

Coconut Curried Spinach

1 T olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 t fresh garlic, minced

1 red chile, minced with seeds

1 T red curry paste

12 oz coconut milk

1 bag spinach

Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. When hot, add the garlic, ginger and red chile. Cook for about 30 seconds then add the curry paste. Mix it up to combine with the garlic mixture. Break it up with a wooden spoon to get the clumps out. Add the coconut milk. Whisk everything together to fully combine the curry paste. Add the spinach and toss through. Cook for 1-2 minutes until the spinach is wilted. Serve over rice.

I’m really excited to make this one again. It has more ingredients than other recipes on my blog, but it’s well worth it. You can vary the level of spiciness to your liking. Serves 4.

Spicy Thai Peanut Noodles

2 T oil (I usually cook with extra virgin olive oil, but peanut or sesame would work well for this recipe)

1 egg

8 oz soba noodles (you could also use udon or rice noodles if you have a preference)

8 scallions, sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 T minced fresh ginger root

12 oz meat (you can use whatever you like: chicken, tofu, beef, pork)

2 cups veggies, julienned (I used cucumbers and carrots since that’s what I had on hand)

1 cup broth (homemade if you have it)

2 T smooth or creamy peanut butter

1 t Sriracha (or other hot sauce)

2 T fish sauce

2 T tamari

juice of 1 lemon or 2 limes

chopped fresh herbs: mint, basil and cilantro

Follow the directions on the noodles package to cook the noodles.

Heat some oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Scramble the egg and set aside.

In the same skillet, add the scallions, garlic and ginger root. Saute for 1-2 minutes, till fragrant.  Add the meat and saute till almost cooked through.

Meanwhile, combine the broth, peanut butter, Sriracha, fish sauce, tamari, and lemon juice. Add this to the skillet and continue cooking till the sauce is heated. Next, add the veggies. Cook until the veggies are tender and crisp, but not soggy.

Drain the noodles and add them to the skillet. Heat the entire dish then serve with egg and fresh herbs on top.