Spicy Thai Noodles

Given a choice of cuisine while deciding on where to have lunch/dinner, Thai would be the first thing that pops up in my husband's mind. I'm not as big a fan as him, but Thai is something I do enjoy eating. Noodles cooked in a sweet-spicy-sour sauce with Tofu - vahrevah!! 

After looking around for Thai recipes, I landed up on this and that. A fusion of both is how I cooked and needless to say (bragging :) ), IT WAS AWESOME !!!

Ingredients:

1. Thai Rice noodles  (Got Rice sticks from Trader Joes)  - 1/2 packet (serves two)
2. Extra Firm Tofu 
3. Green and Red capsicums - 1 each
4. Basil leaves - a bunch
5. Carrot - 1 
6. Onion - 1 
7. Peanuts - a cup
8. Jaggery - 2 tblspoons
9. Chilli sauce
10. Soy sauce
11. Garlic powder - 2 spoons
12. Lemon - few drops
13. Coriander leaves for garnishing

Thai restaurants add what is called "fish sauce" to most of their entrees. When I order, I remember to tell the waiter not to add any egg in my noodles. We tried a different Thai cafe recently, and when I told about my "no egg" thing, the waiter was smart enough to guess that I might be a vegan. He promptly asked if fish sauce was okay. That came as a surprise to me, & for one moment, I cursed myself for eating fish all the while :( So, if you are also a vegetarian, let them know that you don't want fish sauce.

Method:

1. Drain excess water from Tofu and cut into into 1x0.5 inch rectangles.
2. Spread a drop of oil on a pan and fry the Tofu pieces till they turn golden brown on all sides.
   
   
   
3. If you are using Rice sticks from TJs, cut them such that each stick breaks into 4 equal pieces. Soak them all in luke warm water for about 20minutes till they get moderately soft.
4. Cut capsicums, onion and carrot into inch-long pieces.
5. Wash the basil leaves. Basil is the Star ingredient of this dish. Can't get Basil? - don't even think of making these noodles. If you can't get fresh basil leaves, you could substitute with dried basil.
6. Prepare the peanut sauce by dry roasting the peanuts and grinding them with jaggery and salt. Add water to the ground mixture so as to make a semi-thick sauce.
7. Heat two tblspoons of oil and fry all the vegetables with some salt. Cook till tender, not to overcook.
8. Add Tofu, chilli sauce & soy sauce.
9. Now add 75% of the peanut sauce and garlic powder and then mix all the contents of the pan.
10. Taste the curry above, and check the following:
    
    
    
    1. Sweet? - no: add sugar dissolved in water
    2. Spicy? - no: more chilli sauce
    3. Salty? - less: little more salt
    
    
    
    
11. Time to go back to the noodles. If they are soft enough, you could stir fry them. Or else, boil them along with the water used for soaking for few minutes till they get soft. Adding noodles to boiling water (like the way we make Maggi) would result in a soggy mess. So, add noodles and water at the same time and heat them just until the noodles are soft enough to bite. They needn't be too soft.
    
    
    
12. Once the noodles are ready, add the remaining peanut sauce. This step is important, as the noodles would taste bland otherwise. 
13. Mix the curry and noodles along with few drops of lemon juice and coriander leaves. Don't add too much lemon, it should just be a little sour, not too sour.

That's it! Enjoy your meal.... "home-made" with "restaurant-taste"

Entry to events:

1. I do see a lot of green & red in the noodles, so posting this recipe to the Red & Green food event, with a link back to this.
   
2. It's a vegan world: Thai

Pasta

Who doesn't like Italian food, even though its a little cheesy? Surprisingly, some of the Italian dishes are easy to cook. My first experiment with Italian cuisine was Pasta. Wanted to make it in an authentic way. I got the enthu on a Friday evening, and forced my poor husband to take me to the grocery store, after a tiring day at work. Got Penne pasta, shredded Parmesan cheese and Prego tomato-basil sauce. It was my first visit to the Pasta aisle at the grocery store, and my! I was amazed at the countless varieties of pasta sauce.

Here's the recipe, and this is how it looked in my kitchen!

Variations:

1. Added onions and broccoli to eggplant

2. Substituted tomato paste and fresh basil with store-bought Prego sauce

3. Added garlic powder

It hardly took me 15 minutes for pasta to be served on my plate. At restaurant speed huh. :)

Now a days, I stopped purchasing the pasta sauce. Buying plain tomato sauce (is usually kept in the same aisle as other pasta ingredients) instead. Below is another pasta recipe that I invented.

1. Slice an onion into inch long pieces and fry in olive oil
   
2. Chop spinach and fresh basil and add them to the fried onions. A little salt is added
   
3. Dust some dried garlic powder and any dry herbs you like. I use Oregano, Basil, and some Italian seasoning
4. Empty the tomato sauce can into the pan. Add some water so as to thin the sauce and let it cook on low flame for 5min
5. Add cheese and the boiled and drained pasta to the sauce
   
6. Done!
   

When I first made pasta, I boiled the entire contents of the packet as I'm always a bad judge of quantity. The left over pasta was refrigerated in a ziploc bag. I didn't really want to make the same recipe again. Then, came the day, when I wanted to eat Palak paneer. Have you seen its click? As usual, there was some left over PP too, and a new idea in my mind. How about having palak pasta? That's PP again :) Next day's lunch was cooked at rocket speed. 3-2-1, and its ready!

1. fry onions,
2. add prego sauce, palak paneer, salt and cheese.
3. microwave the left over pasta and add it to the sauce mixture.

Five minutes of preparation time, and it was the most delicious pasta I ever had.

Your turn to drool over it now...

Palak Paneer

Summer is in, and so is my first post. How did I find out its summer? Here's my story. Every day I light diyas using oil when I pray to God. For the last three months or so, each time I reach out for my coconut oil tin, I find the oil has solidified and the tin is hard as rock. I end up microwaving the oil, before lighting the lamps. And today, to my surprise, the oil was shaking in the tin. I was soo excited to welcome summer. Living in "Sun" Diego, I have no right to complain about winters. But, come to think of all those woollens, ahhh.. hate it. Sooo happy that its time for my pretty salwars and sandals again. :)

Before posting here, I just wrote a review about an Internet phone here. If you are an NRI, with parents in India, you might check it out.

Hmm... Palak paneer.. The awesome aroma of the gravy while its cooking, makes me crave for Palak paneer atleast once a week.

"This is how I did it" :)

The recipe is loosely based on Indira's post.

Changes I made were:

1. I fried onions before sauting the Spinach leaves in the same skillet, and blended the onion-chilli-spinach mixture together.

2. Used tomato puree.

3. Added garam masala and some kasuri methi while cooking the gravy, and few drops of lemon juice at the end.

4. No cashews, replaced paneer with Tofu so as to keep a tab on my lbs.

Yet another Image. Added some whipping cream at the end this time.