Thai Food: Pad Thai: Pad Cha!

Thai Food: Pad Thai

 

When I think of Thai Food I like many people think of Pad Thai first. Pad Thai is one of the most popular Thai dishes around, perhaps only second only to Tom Yum Goong soup. So this week I decided that I am going to be making Thai Food! I know that many of us eat out at Thai restaurants all the time and have eaten and just love Pad Thai and it is for that reason that this week I'm making a dish called Pad Cha! Pad Cha you say! Yes! Pad Cha! A seafood Pad Thai dish.

Most people are familiar with dishes such as Pad Thai when they eat Thai food and this week I was doing my research to find something a bit different and I came across a Pad Thai recipe called Pad Cha! It's not made with beef or chicken as in other Pad Thai dishes. Pad Cha is a Pad Thai made with seafood or fish.

One of the things I love the most about Thai Food is that you can make it what you wish it to be. This Pad Thai dish can be made with fish fillets, or squid as in Pad Cha Muek or with any kind of seafood mix that you have on hand and this week that is what I had on hand was a 2Lb. bag of really good seafood mix containing shrimp, cuttlefish, oyster, squid, clam and mussels. All the delicious seafood that would make a really good seafood Pad Thai dish.

So this week it's Thai food. Usually this Pad Cha dish is served on rice like sticky sushi rice or Thai jasmine rice. This week I will serve this dish on rice noodles! Remember! "There are no rules in cooking." I thought it would be a nice change of pace to have this Thai Food on rice stick noodles rather than on plain rice which is how it's done all of the time.

This Thai Food dish starts out with a very spicy and pungent mixture of red chilies, shallots and garlic. Then as this Pad Thai cooks I will add lemongrass, kaffir lime, and brown sugar. I can smell it already. The sauces usually used to make this Pad Thai is fish sauce, soy sauce and oyster sauce. In this case I am going to make this Pad Thai with a sauce called Nam Prik Pad or Nam Prik Pao. I am using this particular sauce in my Thai Food because this is a seafood Pad Thai and when I made Tom Yum Goong soup some time back the sauce that is used to impart that Tom Yum Goong special flavor to the Thai Food is Nam Prik Pad or Prik Pao! Since my Pad Thai is seafood based I wanted to add that little something extra to the taste and leave the saltiness of the oyster sauce out of my Pad Cha!

Like I said Thai Food or Pad Thai are very versatile indeed. In my opinion the best way to make Thai Food like Pad Thai or Pad Cha is to have certain things made in advance so that you don't have to fumble for things as you make one serving at  time. It's always good to make more of something that you need in case you end up Jonsing later on.

In Thailand I am told from friends of mine that live there the street vendors have their sauces made in advance so that they can just cook and not worry about measuring out one serving of Thai Food at a time like Pad Thai.

This is the way I make my Thai Food and in this case my Pad Cha. I made my flavor base of red chilies, garlic and shallots hours ahead of time to allow the flavors to marry and then I made my sauce of fish sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar and Nam Prik Pad ahead of time for the number of servings I planned to make and in this way I don't have to worry about grabbing a bottle of this or a pinch of that to make my servings. So let's watch my Thai Food video and see how Pad Thai: Pad Cha is made. Enjoy!


 

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Rabbit Recipes: Rabbit Stew Recipe: Coniglio In Umido Con Peperoni E Cipolle

Stew: Rabbit Recipes

 

 

This week I am cooking up one of my favorite Rabbit Recipes! I am making Rabbit Stew with peppers and onions or coniglio in umido con peperoni e chipole! Rabbit Recipes aren't really all that much different than chicken recipes, in fact they are basically interchangeable!

This weeks Rabbit Stew Recipe is influenced once again from the North of Italy! I guess some of my readers know that I have a penchant for the food of that region ever since I worked for a man from Bari, Italy named Franco Mele'!

My cooking has always been influenced by the recipes I learned at his restaurant Stomboli in Los Angeles California. Rabbit Stew wasn't always on the menu at Stromboli as I was a seasonal thing. I can see why because if I told you what I paid for organic free range rabbits grown in Oregon I think you would faint!

I do love my Rabbit Recipes though! So this week I thought I would make for you a Northern Italian influenced Rabbit Stew Recipe that is delicious and nutritious and something that you can make your own with just about any kind of meat you want.

Stew is just a staple of life no matter where you go in this world and no matter what culture you encounter there is a recipe for a stew of some kind. I have eaten Rabbit Recipes from France, Italy and Germany and I love them all and hopefully if my wallet provides I will make Rabbit Recipes for you from all of these regions!

One of the best parts about Rabbit Recipes is that rabbit is a lean meat and not very high in cholesterol as other meats are. I will in the coming weeks make some other Rabbit Recipes for you from the discarded parts of the rabbit that did not make it into my stew. You can look forward to Rabbit Recipes such as rabbit soup and rabbit pate or terrine! Both just delicious! You see the fact of the matter is that for the expense of the rabbit you do your best to minimize waste. Everything that can be used should get used!

Coniglio In Umido Con Peperoni Cipolle is a dish of the common people of Northern Italy. Isn't it amazing how the quote, unquote peasant dishes of cultures are the one's that you find is some of the most expensive fine dining venues in your area? I find this to be very interesting.

Now one of the first things I did to this Rabbit Stew Recipe is the cut up my rabbit by separating the rear legs, the front legs, the skirt and filets. Now you can just go ahead and cook the rabbit in this recipe the way it sits but in this case I marinated the rabbit for 48 hours in simple marinade of white wine and some herbs and spices. The recipe is below.

As the side dish I am making some lovely creamy polenta! My friends and family think I make the best polenta in the world and so I guess I will just have to agree with them. I use chicken stock instead of water in my polenta recipe. Check the recipe below I am sure you will LOVE this polenta!

So come with me and learn how to make one of my favorite Rabbit Stew Recipes! Coniglio In Umido Con Peperoni E Cipolle! Enjoy the video!


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Rocky Mountain Oysters: Asian Style Taco Recipe

Rocky Mountain Oysters Taco Recipe

 

 

This week I am making Rocky Mountain Oysters in an Asian style Taco Recipe! I was looking for something different to do this week and I was looking for some thing that had some balls to it. So I decided to heed the words of some of the wiseguys from back in New York where I am from. They have an old saying: "Mess with the bull, get the horns!" Well, this week I went out looking for a bull to mess with and I didn't get the horns. I got the balls! Hence this week I am making bulls balls! Rocky Mountain Oysters in an Asian style Taco Recipe!

Rocky Mountain Oysters are called many other things depending on where you are in the country at the moment. Prairie oysters, Montana tendergroins, cowboy caviar, swinging beef, swing steak, calf fries, criadillas, mountain oysters, and even lamb fries to name but a few. No matter how you cut it these bulls testicles are a true western delicacy! Now don't get me wrong the Western United States is not the first place in history to eat Rocky Mountain Oysters. I am sure that back in Roman times they were called something completely different but the fact remains that men and women have been eating animal testicles since the Roman times and maybe even before!

There are many forms of testicles for the eating. lamb testicles, yak testicles, water buffalo testicles which I am sure are hard to find in the United States. As with many cultures that have and do eat Rocky Mountain Oysters or other animal testicles there are those that believe that the testicles of animals have curative powers or that eating of the testicles can enhance sexual performance is some way. In Japan Rocky Mountain Oysters and the testicles of hogs as well as other sexual organs such as Tiger penis are prized for the supposed powers that they instill in men that eat them. I don't know how much credit to put to those claims, I just like the taste.

So this week I thought long and hard (no pun intended with the use of Rocky Mountain Oysters) as to what I wanted to make this week. I know that there has been a craze in the last few years with Asian style Taco Recipes made famous by the Los Angeles food truck business called Nom Nom! I have actually eaten off of their truck when I go to visit my brother in LA! The tacos they make are delicious and a real twist on flavor. Well, I like Asian style Taco Recipes like Nom Nom and so I thought to myself that maybe they don't have the balls to make an Asian Taco Recipe using Rocky Mountain Oysters but I do!

So in the style and with the greatest respect for the delicious Asian tacos from Nom Nom I am going to make my Asian style Taco Recipe using Rocky Mountain Oysters and I am going to make a delicious Asian pesto sauce to use on the Taco Recipe as well! So I hope you enjoy the video and I hope you make this Rocky Mountain Oysters Taco Recipe!


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