Pad Kee Mao

Swaa dee khrap (Hello in Thai)

If there is one cuisine that I fell flat apart from Indian that is Thai (those who knew me since 2000 should know this by now). My romance with Thai food definitely didn't start on a good note. The very first time I tried Thai was in NYC in the summer of 1999. It was my very first onsite trip to US and someone suggested Thai food as the closest to Indian food (thinking I would miss Desi food!!). The 2nd attempt at Eagle Thai also went belly up. I almost decided never to go back to Thai food again. What a disaster that would've been!! Thanks to a good old boss of mine,  I was introduced to Thai again with the right dish to be ordered - Pad Thai. From that point on there was no looking back. The only time I had a long break from Thai since 2000 was the few months I was in Bangalore.

I have been experimenting with Thai food in the last few months. Today I lost myself  when I stepped into Thainatown in Sydney. But more about that later. Today's dish - Pad Kee Mao has been a good mood enhancer. Not sure if that is what people call as "soul food". Life can't be bad after a good Pad Kee Mao from Saap Thai. :-) Had that for lunch today and while that taste was still lingering tried out at home as well.

What went in:

• Basil leaves
• Choy sum (Some kinda spinach) (the stem and leaves to be separated)
• Broccoli
• Chicken
• Eggs
• Bamboo shoot strips
• Garlic
• Bird eye chillies
• Oyster sauce
• Kecap Manis
• Sugar (very little a tea spoon per serving)
• Soy sauce
• Fish Sauce
• Cooked Rice noodles (the wider variety)

The result:

The method:

1. In a fuming hot wok, add a generous amount of oil and sautee the garlic and chillies for a few seconds.
2. Add in the chicken pieces. The chicken pieces have to be small enough to cooked under a minute or so.
3. Add in the Choy sum stems and bamboo shoots and sautee.
4. In a little while add the Choy sum leaves, broccolli and any other veggie that intend to add.
5. Add in a bit of fish sauce at the moment when the chicken and veggies are being cooked.
6. Add the noodles. Care to be taken not to over do this part. (I repeated this process 3 times for the amount of food I wanted to cook.) Roughly limit to only what you need for 1 serving.
7. Add all the sauces you have in your pantry (not tomato sauce though!!) and some sugar.
8. The distinctive "aroma" of the fish sauce should come out at this point.
9. Stir fry the noodles a bit to mix the sauces evenly.
10. Add the basis leaves and stir it for a minute.
11. Create a space in the center of the wok and break in an egg (or 2 if you chose to).
12. Stir fry the egg and mix in the noodles after the egg is about 90% cooked.

Potential Bloopers

1) Don't over cook the noodles. The result will be a dry kanji (dry porridge).

2) Watch out on the fish sauce, it can come out to be too salty.

Happy Cooking!!