This month's cooking adventure was Thai food - I've always wanted to try it just because I'm fascinated by some of the techniques they use. I really want to try making pad thai because it looks so delicious, but I decided to go with something that was relatively easy (less possibility of catastrophic failure), and made shrimp satay with peanut sauce, and I also made a vegetable and noodle stir fry to go along with it. Now, I am not a fan of Asian food, I never really have been, but I went to an Oriental restaurant the last time I was in Salt Lake (I don't remember the name, I'm sure my sisters know it) and it was...not so bad. I decided that if I could tolerate someone else cooking it for me, I could at least give it a shot myself, this is supposed to be a cooking adventure after all.
The shrimp satay was pretty easy, it's just shrimp mixed with some turmeric, coriander, sugar, salt and cream, and then fried until the shrimp are cooked through. I must have written part of the recipe down wrong because I could tell right after I started cooking it that there was too much liquid - I tried draining some of it off, and it helped a little, but the pictures I looked at showed the shrimp as being pretty crispy, and mine were most definitely not. They still tasted good though! I was worried about it being too spicy (mom), but there wasn't that much heat to them.
The peanut sauce, on the other hand, was super spicy. I knew that going in though, because the recipe calls for Thai red curry paste and I know enough about oriental cooking to know that their sauces are usually pretty hot stuff. I also made a point to taste all of my ingredients by themselves (including the dry spices, blech!) before cooking with them just to get an idea of their taste. I've never had a peanut sauce with a meat dish, and I think that's what I was most looking forward to - I wasn't disappointed, the shrimp and peanut sauce together was awesome. After a few bites of that sauce though, my head felt like it was on fire!
I also made a veggie and chow mien noodle stir fry just to add some more textures and tastes to the meal. It's the first time I've ever used a wok (sweet!) and they turned out ok. It was just some red peppers, onions, and snow peas (I also hate peas, but I made myself eat a couple) fried in sesame oil, but they were good too. I would have mixed everything together, but I didn't want to drench everything in the peanut sauce - I think that it was better to let everyone control the amount of heat they were getting, plus I wanted to try the shrimp plain instead of mixed together with everything.
I'm pretty happy with my meal overall. Once again, the sauce was the star of the show - at least I know I'm good at making sauces. :) I'm still set on trying to make pad thai someday, for now, I'll keep thinking about what to make for next month's cooking adventure. Stay tuned!
