Asian Noodles (Balance from Funk)

I was disappointed to find that we were only using pre-made noodles, mostly dried. I've read a bit about the intensity that goes into making this staple of the Asian diet, and though there are few and simple ingredients, the method and detail is anything but. Dirty Dave and I assembled the large mise for Pad Thai, then I went and did a Cold Soba Noodle with Dipping Sauce dish.

Pad Thai, when broken down, is a simple dish...until you taste it. It's basically broad nice noodles in sauce, garnished with a protein or two and a handful of vegetables and egg. First, soak the rice noodles in water for 20 minutes to soften to flexible. Mix the sauce: fish sauce, palm sugar, lime juice and tamarind past. This, I found, is the key to the dish -- depending on your ratios here will determine the flavor and balance of the dish. All four of these components balance each other out: sweet, acid, salty, sour. Next, heat wok, drop in whisked egg with a little water, keep moving it to cook it all, remove and break up into little pieces. Add curry paste and oil to the wok, heat it, then saute proteins (in this case chopped chicken breast and whole shrimp), until just cooked then remove. Stir fry cabbage and carrots to tender, add noodles and the sauce you made. If more liquid is required, add stock. Fold in proteins, taste.

Our first try was way-limey. DD added a dash of fish sauce, and it came back into balance. However, now everything just tasted....strong. Weirdly overly sauced but still relatively dry. I guess we could of added more noodles to cut it, but we wanted to have enough to start again. Plated, sprinkled with ground up roasted peanuts, cilantro and lime wedges. On the second go around, DD used chili sauce instead of curry paste and while the heat was a little higher, the over all flavor was definitely more balanced.

Next up was the cold soba, which was a bit simple but healthy and delicious. The soba noodles are made out of buckwheat, and came in cute little round bands. Boiled for a few minutes to soft, then plunged into an ice bath to halt cooking. The dipping sauce was made up mostly of dashi, the stock base that we made on Friday for miso soup, but today was made from instant dashi -- just add water. A dash of mirin and soy sauce was added, and that was the sauce. Some wasabi paste was made from powder (again, just add water) and served on the side too. Nori (dried pressed sea weed) was cut up and used as a garnish. No salt was used in the boiling water, the dipping sauce delivered all you needed.

Tomorrow, we visit Dumplingville.

ADDENDA:
I listened to an interview with Michael Pollan on an NPR podcast today, promoting his "In Defense of Food" book. I kind of found his previous books annoying and overly personal (not unlike an, ahem, blog), but I have to admit, I want to read his new one anyway -- he addresses how the U.S.'s lack of established food culture has allowed scientists to drive us crazy with nutritional info -- how nutrition can be regarded as separate from foods by putting it in pill form, and how it never quite works. The whole drive to demonize fat in the 70s and 80s made people fatter -- in fact, how in our food culture there is always an urge to make some element good and able to cure everything, and another element wholly bad and causes all evil. I wonder, how will it all end? Will it ever shake out with established, proven facts about nutrition that fits most people?

Felt heavy from a crappy eating weekend. It was fun to eat slovenly and revisit some habits of old, but don't want to live there. Thank goodness ice cream and cookies aren't heroin! Scale surprisingly said 224 this morning, I was sure I was gaining...

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, 1 banana, hunger 4/5

AM TASTINGS: 10:30am, small plate of pad thai, bite of sesame noodles, bite of beef and broccoli with fried noodles, bite of cold soba noodles, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, small amount of organic sports drink chasing a pint of water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Thirsty when I got home, sport drink looked appealing, but cut the desire with swigging water first.

DINNER: 5pm, large green salad with vinegar and oil, school beef & broc, school pad thai, small amount of almond ice cream, water, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Betsy left an empty bowl in the freezer, with some smudges of ice cream on the edges.

EVENING TASTINGS: 7-9pm, equivalent of 1 glass of wine, one bread roll, a little bit of cheese, water, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
First of 6 sessions of wine tasting with B. Laid out 7 glasses with about 1/3 of a glass each, only had a couple of snorts from each, except the final port, which was surprisingly mildly sweet and musky, like raisins and leather. He he he. I said raisins and leather.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, peanut butter and wholegrain crackers, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5