recipe - pad thai w/ tofu

tags: tofu recipe cooking vegetarian

this a a very good pad thai recipe, I prepared yesterday, when Lilach was hungry and wanted to thai food.
My Recipe in intended for people with some culinary creativity sense. I don't give any exact quantities (unless its for baking and deserts, where its a must).


Ingredients

• 3-4 tablespoons of dried shripms
• 4 dried or fresh thai chillies (the small red ones or (second choice) small green ones
  
• about 250grams medium or hard tofu
• 4 Kfir lime dried leaves
  
• 2 little stalks of lemon grass
• about a tablespoon full of shrip paste
• a handful of nuts
• 3 lemons
• salt
• sweet chilli sauce (I use Mae Ploy brand)
• soy sauce (kikoman is the preffered brand)
• sweet plum sauce
• 1 pack of rice noodles
• 1 big carrot
• some seseame or other oil (not olive oil this time, love)
• a tablespoon (a bit more, actually) of pal sugar
• 6-7 chives
• coriander leaves
  

Preparation

The goodies

1. put the dried shrimps, shrip paste, chllies, palm sugar, kfir lime, lemon grass into a container, squeeze about 1/2 of lemon inside (a big shaker is the best for this purpose)
2. pour some boiling water into the container, and steer well, to get the palm sugar melting, the dried ingredients suck some juices in.
3. Cut the tofu into small (1cmx1cm) cubes, and put them into the container
4. add some salt, pour in a good amount of soy sauce
   
5. cut the chives into small rings.
6. grater the carrot

The Rice noodles

1. boil some water in a pot wide enough to put the rice noodles inside without breaking them.
2. after the water are boiling, take the pot off the fire, put the rice noodles inside
3. steer gently, and taste periodically. after about 3 minutes the rice noodles will become "al dante" - they won't have the "ricey" taste to them anymore, but still have a hard bite to them. don't let them get too soft! when they're ready, drain them out of the pot, and rinse them under running water to take all rice starch out - and prevent them of becoming sticky.

Wokking everything together

1. heat up a wok on large flame
   
2. put a genearous amoung of seaseme oil inside
3. put the carrot slices inside, and steer breifly
4. put the noodles inside, but not in one batch, but taking a handful at a time, to "air them up" and make some room for all the goodies you are about to add.
5. pour in all of the goodies - a nice sauce with all those great goodies inside.
6. toss all the ingredients in the Wok for a couple of minutes
7. add some more sweet chillli sauce
   
8. add some sweet plum sauce (really just a touch - about 2-3 tea spoons)
9. squeeze an additional big lemon into this great smelling wok.
   
10. as you fry everything up - add some more soy sauce - the noodles should not be white, but have a brownish color to them.
11. after about 5-7 minutes of frying (depends on the size of your Wok and the heat of your fire), turn the flame off

Garnish and Serving (for two)

1. put a mount of the delicious pad-thai on two plates
2. sprinkle a very very genearous amount of chopped coriander leaves on top of each plate
3. sprinke a very very ver ygenearous amount of ground peanuts on top of each plate. you can't really go overboard with the coriander and peanuts - they have to be abound.
4. cut a slice of lemon, and put on the side of the plate for further appling of lemon by the happy bastard who's gonna eat this dish.
5. Serve
6. smile
7. make love
8. do the dishes
9. take the garbage out