Monday, September 14, 2015

JBT Cooks: Pad Kee Mao

The honey and I love to eat Thai Food... But our favorite Thai place, Madam Mam's, is about 30 minutes away from us and sometimes we just don't wanna drive that far. Here's a post that talks about our Mam's faves: Date Night @ Mam's.

Last week I tried to be adventurous and make chicken and shrimp Pad Thai. It was nothing special and almost mediocre. I didn't put enough sauce and the noodles were too dry. The chicken and shrimp were good, but it needed more sawwwceeee. (Note to self: more sawwwceee next time.)

A few days later I wanted to give cooking another try and try to make Pad Kee Mao (PKM) "Thai Drunken Noodles"... One of our absolute favorite dishes and the honey orders it every single time we eat at Mam's. I was trying to remember the ingredients in the PKM at Mam's. The most dominant flavors are Thai basil and garlic... LOTS AND LOTS OF GARLIC. Can you tell that I love garlic? My last post was pretty much based on a garlic sauce!

I found this recipe for PKM while doing a simple Google search. I picked this one because it looked simple and I could add and subtract things to make it like Mam's PKM dish. I just really needed the sauce recipe because I wasn't sure which sauces went into this dish.

So here's my rendition of PKM....

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 Tablespoons canola oil (or vegetable oil. Use an oil with a high smoking point)
  • 1 Pkg. (14 oz) rice noodles (I used the wide flat noodles... Any rice noodle will do)
  • 1 lb. (maybe more) of Chinese Broccoli (I used a big bundle that I bought)
  • Large packet of white button mushrooms cut into about 1/2 cm to 1 cm slices. (Use a lot... They get so small when you cook 'em!!)
  • 8 cloves of garlic (or more if you love garlic like me!)
  • As many Thai chili peppers you can handle (I had equal parts garlic and chilis)
  • 8 oz of chicken (that's all the meat that I had from the chicken I used for Pad Thai the other night)
  • Lots and LOTS of Thai basil (chop it up or leave it whole... The more the better!!!)
Sauce Ingredients (Note: I just used my best judgement/intuition when making the sauce since this was my first time)
  • 4 Tablespoons Fish sauce (Viet Huong brand is BEST.. but any will do)
  • 5 Tablespoons Oyster sauce
  • 5 Tablespoons Thai Sweet Black Soy sauce
  • 1-2 Teaspoons of sugar (this helps even out all the saltiness from the other sauces)
  • 1/2 to 1 Tablespoon of pepper (original recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon, but I love pepper!)
  • Optional: 3 Tablespoons of Holy Basil Seasoning (I only used one tablespoon of the sauce and omitted the basil and chilis in the jar. I felt that the dish didn't need this component)
(Feel free to add or reduce the sauce depending on how saucy you want your noodles to be. Knowing my honey.... I had to add a lot of sauce!)

Directions:
  1. Soak the noodles in luke warm water for 40 minutes to an hour... *Recommend doing this as soon as you get home or know that you want to make this dish. (This is the part that I HATE the most because I hate waiting! I have soaked the noodles in hot water for 25 minutes before and it was fine. You just have to leave the noodles in the pan a little longer when cooking)
  2. Fill a small pot of water and let the water boil (This boiling water is for the stems of the Chinese broccoli because the stems are too tough to cook thoroughly without boiling them) Cook the stems and place aside.
  3. Mix the sauces, sugar, and pepper in a bowl and set aside.
  4. Heat the oil in the pan until the oil is almost smoking. (You want HIGH heat for this! Use a wok if you have one!) 
  5. Add the garlic and Thai chilis and stir fry them quickly in the pan. After 30 seconds of stir frying the garlic and chilis, add the chicken (or whatever meat you choose). Stir fry the chicken until almost cooked. Push the chicken to one side of the pan/wok.
  6. Add the mushrooms into the pan to cook alongside the chicken.
  7. Once the mushrooms and chicken are done, add the Chinese broccoli leaves and stems.
  8. Once the leaves are wilted, drain your noodles and add them to the pan. Now is a good time to add the Thai basil leaves
  9. Add the sauce all over the noodles in the pan and incorporate all of the ingredients with the noodles. (I do it like I'm mixing a salad bowl hehe) Make sure that your noodles are saucy enough and covered in sauce. If not, mix some more sauce together and add it in the pan.
  10. Make sure everything is mixed together and the noodles are cooked enough (shouldn't be too chewy)  and VOILA... You are all done!!!
(OOPSIES for the lengthy instructions... Just want to set you up for success!)
This will be your marvelous final product!
GOOD JOB YOU!
Helpful photos of the some ingredients used:
Fish Sauce!
Oyster sauce

Sweet Soy sauce



Happy Eatings!



2 comments:

  1. YES! Thank you! I just ordered this dish at Sap's yesterday and I love it so much...totally excited to try making it. Thanks for posting!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Let me know how it turns out when you make it! :) It's fairly easy to make!

      Delete