Drunken Noodles, Sober Chef

Hi folks, Chef G. here and I'm happier than a 12-point buck who survived hunting season to welcome you back to The Chef G. Cooking Channel.  In case you got lost on the internet and found yourself reading this oddity by mistake, let me fill you in on what's going on.  This site is dedicated to Making America's Grossly Average Cooking Righteous And Powerful Again.  As the big kahuna of the MAGACRAPA movement, I am proud to say that out of all the celebrity chef blogs based in the northern part of the central part of my area of the upper Midwest, mine is ranked #1.

[Thank you, studio audience, for that generous round of applause.  Now let's get down to the serious work of making delicious food.]

As promised last month, I'm going to cook another Thai dish.  Thailanders have one of the most intriguing food cultures in the world and I barely scratched the surface of Thaiborg cooking with my Tom Kha Gai.  If I ever hope to wear the coveted BowThai Award for excellence in Thaiowan cooking, I know I have to expand my Thaihorizons.

That brings me to Pad Kee Mao, which, if I'm not mistaken, translates to "Drunken Noodles."  I used the Googler thing on my computer to obtain some history behind the name, but I forgot most of what I read.  I'm a senior citizen who just got over a bout with Covid.  I can't be expected to remember stuff I learned more than two hours ago.

One thing I DO remember reading is that Pad Kee Mao is often eaten in Thailand late at night after partying with friends.  Speaking from past experience, the food equivalent in America would be those tiny hamburgers I used to get at White Castle well after midnight.

I also used the Googler to look up some recipes for Thai Drunken Noodles.  I could not believe how many versions of Pad Kee Mao there are, and how the ingredients for those recipes are all over the place.  It seems you can put almost any kind of meat, any kind of vegetables, and any kind of spices you want into this scrumptious dish.  With that kind of freedom, who knows what I might cook up?

There ARE a few constants though.  Every recipe I saw included soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, hot chili peppers, flat rice noodles, and holy basil.  I could not find holy basil at my local market, so I settled for its cousin, blasphemous basil. 

Another concession I made to authentic Pad Kee Mau is that I reduced the heat.  My tongue, esophagus and guts can no longer tolerate high levels of capsaicin.  Therefore, I used just a couple mildly hot peppers--peppers in the middle of the Scoville Scale rather than the super high heat of the hybrid chili peppers out there.  (Try eating a scorpion or ghost pepper sometime.)

So there you go.  My plan is to preserve the many fine flavors contained in Pad Kee Mao without overwhelming them with mouth-burning torture.  Another part of my plan is to make drunken noodles without being drunk.  A couple of local craft beers should suffice.

   

I should have waited to post this picture until I worked out a payment agreement with the local brewery.  An endorsement from Chef G. will make them $Millions.  Now, I'll be lucky to get a few thousand bucks out of the deal.

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In the following pictures, you'll see the ingredients I selected for my Pad Kee Mao.

Clockwise from upper left:  Sliced red bell pepper, green onions, blasphemous basil, minced garlic, minced ginger, sliced shallot, hot chili peppers. 

Flat rice noodles. 

Chicken thigh pieces mixed with a bit of water, a tad of cornstarch, a modicum of olive oil, and a scootch of soy sauce.

Pretty easy so far, right?  While the rice noodles softened in boiling water for a couple of minutes, I put the seasoned chicken pieces into very hot oil in my wok.

I could almost eat this nicely seared chicken already.  But I'll wait.

I removed the chicken from the wok and set it aside.  Then I added a little more oil and tossed in the garlic, ginger and shallot.  A half minute later, the red bell peppers, the chili peppers, and the blasphemous basil went in.  I stirred it all together, because that's what you do with a stir fry.

Quickly thereafter, I returned the chicken to the wok.  A little more oil too.  Then the rice noodles were added.  Then came the sauce I made from a tablespoon of brown sugar, two tablespoons of soy sauce, two tablespoons of fish sauce (sorry, none for you Mrs. Chef G.) and a little pepper.  For good measure, I poured an ounce of ale into the mix.  Check out the process in the next few pictures.  

The stirring was great.  The sizzle was great.  The beauty was greater.  The aroma was greatest.  I could not wait to scoop some into a bowl to see if the taste was BEYOND great.

Oh My Golly Gosh, it was so f***ing good.

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AN ATTEMPT TO CRITIQUE MY OWN DISH IN AN UNBIASED MANNER

I apologized to my studio audience for the profane outburst in the last picture's caption.  Surprisingly, most of them agreed that my swearing was not emphatic ENOUGH about the deliciousness.

Indeed, it was truly delicious, but I see some avenues for improvement.  Most of those avenues are related to my reluctance to buy additional ingredients that I'm not familiar with and that I might not ever use again.  For example, do you REALLY need fish sauce AND oyster sauce?  Do you really need DARK soy sauce AND regular soy sauce?  Will Shaoxing Wine be a better additive than beer?  Is holy basil that much better than blasphemous basil?

After tasting the wonderful flavors of my humble Pad Kee Mao, I think the answer to all of those questions is "yes."  I'm ready to take it to the next level.

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NEWS UPDATE

Somehow, even before I had a chance to take my dish to the next level, Thai chefs from around the world noticed my recipe and loved it.  I guess that's a testament to the influence of The Chef G. Cooking Channel, my personal fame, and the MAGACRAPA movement.

At the annual Conference of Thai Chefs, I humbly accepted The BowThai Award for excellence in Thai cooking.  

A CHEF G. FAMILY THANKGIVING (And the Aftermath)

Hi folks, Chef G. here.  As always, it's great to see all you wonderful, sophisticated, and loyal fans who tuned in for another episode of The Chef G. Cooking Channel.  Sure, I'm supercool and all, but dedicated viewers like you deserve some of the credit for my incredible success too.  Without you, I'd be nothing but a brilliant, yet unknown chef preparing delicious food for myself in my own kitchen.  BORING!  Cooking is so much more fun when I have a legion of fans I can brag to.

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You don't have to remind me that I promised a second consecutive Thai dish in the last episode.  I already know that, because I'm the guy who wrote it.  Yes, today was going to be the day I featured Pad Kee Mao, but the aftermath of last week's Chef G. Family Thanksgiving Dinner changed things a little bit.  Please allow me to tell you about it.

The Chef G. family was most thankful.  We all agreed that this was the largest family gathering in at least 20 years.  Our family is small, so, for us, twelve people is pretty large.  It included my 89-year-old dad, his three sons, two daughters-in law, and most of his grandchildren & their partners.  With much reminiscing, story telling, and joking, a good time was had by all.  We didn't even get into a contentious political fight because we're all on the same page in that regard.

 

The main table.  The family patriarch is at the end.  Behind him is a smaller table where the family members who didn't race to the main table had to sit.

The food was delicious too, even though the amazing Chef G. didn't cook it.  Chef G's brother, Chef D., made all of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes--mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing, yams, rutabagas, salad, corn, etc.  He even roasted the turkey--and he's a vegetarian.  What a trooper.

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The Chef G. Family Thanksgiving Dinner was at my dad's house in the great state of Iowa.  A few days after returning home to Minnesota, I felt a cold coming on.  The next day, my brother, Chef D., texted that he had tested positive for Covid.  Being that I was not feeling up to par, I tested myself.  I, too, was positive.

So far, everybody else at the gathering has tested negative.  Based on those results, I can only conclude that this strain of the Coronavirus only attacks high level chefs.  What's up with that?

Anyway, I didn't think it would be appropriate to go shopping for Pad Kee Mao ingredients this morning.  Why expose a bunch of innocent grocery store customers to the Chefaronavirus?  Instead, I planned to grill some chicken thighs I had in the refrigerator.  Undeterred by a little snow on the ground, high winds, and a 17-degree (F) temperature, I followed up on that plan.

No doubt about it, they'll be delicious.

Perhaps the most interesting part of my second day of Covid was when I opened up my computer machine to look at my news feed.  One of the items included a list of the best cooking shows.  I sure didn't need to scroll through the click-bait to know who the #1 chef in the world is.  

It's ME . . . obviously.

Get ready for Pad Kee Mao next week.  Thank you for reading.