Missed Opportunities

How did I blow it with our Thai basil plant? Let us count the ways.

Way back in May, when we were poking around a nursery in Vermont, I was beside myself with excitement to find a tiny Thai basil plant sitting in an obscure corner of the greenhouse. We brought it home and I kept it inside until the weather heated up a bit (basil hates the cold), and then Margy potted it and set it outside. All summer I tended to it lovingly, making sure to prune the flowers and to give it enough sun and water. It thrived.

And then I hardly ever used it.

And now it's dying.

And I'm angry with myself.

Don't get me wrong -- it was occasionally put to good use, lending its herbal, aniselike perfume to the occasional stir-fry or curry. But I didn't make enough Thai or Thai-inspired dishes to properly exploit the exotic little bush growing in our back yard.

Tonight is the perfect example. I made a Thai-style squid stir-fry, fragrant with shallots and garlic and fish sauce and spicy with hot peppers, and then I garnished it with cilantro and Margy and I sat down to dinner. All day I was thinking Lotsa basil, lotsa basil, but somehow that crucial bit of information slipped my mind while I was laying out ingredients. Three bites into our meal, I shot out of my chair: "Dammit!" I scared the heck out of Margy, who for some reason doesn't appreciate my frantic non-sequitur exclamations. I clued her in to why I was suddenly upset.

It was pouring out, and we had already started eating. I sat back down.

Thirty seconds later I grabbed the kitchen scissors, stepped into my shoes, and went outside to clip some basil, which I then hastily snipped over our plates. I don't have many chances left, and it's going to be a long Thai-basil-less winter. I'm happy to say this last-minute herb application did indeed make all the difference. If only I had thought of it sooner. And more often.

They Never Run Out of Pork

I went to ShopRite thinking Thai squid stir-fry.

Alas, no squid to be found. The seafood guy told me to check the freezer case, saying sometimes when they run out of squid behind the counter they'll grab a box of frozen squid and put it out and no one knows the difference. I almost caved, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I figured if I were throwing a bit of squid into a dish along with other stuff, it might be okay just this once, but I had planned a squidcentric dinner, so I'd just have to move on.

Sticking with the general strategy, I bought a few boneless pork chops. I sliced them into strips and stir-fried those. I basically made a Thai-style curry without the coconut milk... and without a few other admittedly important items that I didn't have, like lemongrass. But still, grinding up a paste of chilies, cilantro, garlic, ginger, shrimp paste, and spices got me almost all the way there, and as long as we weren't expecting absolute authenticity (as if), all would be well.

My tasting panel -- Margy -- passed me with flying colors. She appreciates a good shot of heat, and this dish had it. Plus we tend to like anything that gives us a reason to snip some little purple-green Thai basil leaves off the plant we've been tending to so lovingly all summer.

Curry Homework

Instead of going to the regular supermarket to replenish our supplies, we hit the Asian market for Chinese black beans, green tea, sesame oil, tofu, baby bok choy, long beans, fresh chilies, ginger candies that we love and most other people hate -- and coconut milk, lemongrass, and shrimp paste.

After all, it was time to solidify some of the things we learned in our Thai cooking class, and we needed some vital items. I was hoping I might be able to track down the elusive galangal and kaffir lime leaves, but alas I was correct that the market doesn't stock them. Bummer.

The place does have great fish and meat counters, so, while Margy the gardener bought some plants over at Home Depot, I grabbed a whole yellowtail for tonight and a couple of racks of pork ribs for tomorrow, the Fourth of Ju-ly. Back home, I made a dumbed-down curry paste that was still vibrant, fragrant, and tasty. In the class we learned that Thais grind up the entire cilantro plant in their pastes -- stems, roots, and all. In fact, the instructor said Thais might use everything but the leaves, which are too good looking to just bash into oblivion and are better used later as a garnish.

The exciting part is that our garden is blossoming, and this week the cilantro was at its peak. So I just ripped some out of the ground, rinsed off the dirt, and threw the roots and stems in the processor with garlic, chilies, lime zest, shrimp paste, salt, pepper, and spices. I rubbed some paste onto the fish, which I broiled, and I cooked the rest with coconut milk and fish sauce to make a little pool of flavor to let the yellowtail swim around in. For a garnish I used Thai basil leaves from the plant we got in Vermont, along with more cilantro. May the parade of homegrown bounty continue!

Our First Cooking Class

For a while, Margy and I had been sitting on an awesome gift from our friends Macca and Looch, a gift certificate for a one-day class at the Institute of Culinary Education. Choosing the class from a giant list was agony. Agony. We stalled many times. Japanese? Indian? French? Knife skills? WINE??

In the end, we chose Classic Thai. My reason was that I wanted to make a curry paste from scratch. I really like some of the pastes that come in a jar, but that's too easy -- it's almost cheating. I wanted the real deal, and I wanted to better understand how the flavors work.

So Margy and I met up at the school and gathered with our class of sixteen in a kitchen classroom to discuss the list of recipes with the instructor, over a little not-very-Thai spread of cheese and crackers. "When do we get to drink wine?" one woman asked. I looked around and saw knives. I figured the wine wouldn't come out until the knives went away.

We were then split up into three groups, each group having a menu of dishes to divide up amongst the members. All three groups were to make a curry -- ours was a green curry with pork -- with the option of preparing the paste by hand or simply measuring it out from a jar. As Margy and I shook hands with our three comrades, I said, "I want to make the curry paste." They looked at me as if I was insane. Yet by my calculations we had most of two hours to finish four or five dishes. The others humored me. "Okaaaay," one guy said, shrugging and turning his palms up toward the ceiling.

One of the fun things about this class was that it offered exotic ingredients that I have trouble finding. My Asian market stocks lemongrass, but it has no galangal, or kaffir lime leaves. At ICE, they had it all -- plus plenty of fish sauce and shrimp paste, both of which are so very Thai, while also being funkier than James Brown. It was great to see the instructor pass around an open jar of shrimp paste and watch one person after another recoil suddenly. Smells bad, tastes great.

The problem was that the knives were so dull I nearly killed myself trying to slice galangal. It's a knobby root that looks a lot like ginger (the teacher called it "ginger's sexy Thai cousin," but after checking it out I'd say ginger is actually sexier, if less exotic), but the piece I had in front of me was hard as a rock. I had to kind of saw at it to make sure my blade had at least penetrated the skin and had a chance at working through the whole root before sending the galangal flying and getting my blood flowing. Fortunately, I didn't rush, and I got the job done.

Sure, I almost dumped all of my paste on the floor when I tried to remove the foreign blender from its base and the paste oozed quickly out the bottom, but I stopped it with my apron and eventually corralled it. Boy, did it smell good. Fresh chilies, galangal, lemongrass, lime zest, garlic, shallots, cilantro, spices, and, yes, shrimp paste (only a little) will do that. I had a rush of excitement over my homemade paste. Granted, I used a blender -- I didn't squat over a mortar and pestle and pound, pound, pound, as is the Thai tradition -- but this was still the closest I'd come to the geniune article.

Meanwhile, Margy was prepping the rest of the ingredients for the curry -- Japanese eggplant, yellow pepper, Thai basil, impossibly fragrant kaffir lime leaves -- and we then went to the stove and cooked the curry together. Our classmates buzzed around us, grilling satays, simmering soups, stir-frying pad thais, checking a bamboo steamer full of sticky rice. From time to time I heard that woman ask, "Wine?"

Sooner or later -- later for her, clearly -- the beer and wine came out. I looked around. Yup, the knives were gone. Two assistants pushed together our workstations and turned them into one large dinner table, set with bowls and plates and wine glasses. All of the teams put our finished dishes on another table, and the feasting began. The food was really good; I've had worse at actual Thai restaurants. See that ceramic dish in front, the one whose contents are sort of white, green, and red? That's our curry. Dee-lish.

Let's Thai One On

After working in a -- gasp -- office for the first time in months (only temporarily; phew), I needed a reward.

So I met up with Margy at quitting time and we took a long stroll over to Pam Real Thai. There was a short line for a table, and the owner practically pleaded with us to go to his new outpost a few blocks away ("Same food, same price, more tables"). But we were already at this place, and I could see Pam herself working the stove, pink cheeked and sure handed. We stayed, and a table was ready in no time.

We kind of went overboard on the ordering, but I wanted to try as many things as possible. We began with curry puffs (flaky, a little sweet, and delicious) and a salad called larb with ground chicken. The larb was pretty exotic and offered flavors that were new to us, possibly some unfamiliar spices and "roasted rice powder." Its dressing was bright with lime juice and mint.

Our entrees were squid with ginger sauce (background) and crispy duck with basil. Both were great; the duck was spicy and the squid cooling. We ate as much as we could (then I ate a little more), but that larb was a big-'un, so we couldn't get through the main dishes. That was good news -- we got to bring Pam Thai home.

Pad Thai Take-Out

I do get tired of cooking sometimes.

Bones!

I was in Williamsburg visiting my friend the Triple G, and he brought me to his neighborhood Thai spot. I'd been eating chicken all week, but the chicken in a sauce of garlic and black pepper (gai tod) jumped out at me, so I ordered it. The fact that the menu referred to a "half chicken" told me I'd be getting some of my precious dark meat in addition to the obligatory breast, which sealed the deal.

I was surprised to find the chicken had been hacked into small pieces, but I didn't mind, because it hadn't been taken off the bone. It seemed more authentic this way, and it was much more flavorful. I know dealing with bones can be a drag, but I'll never complain. I'll take a bunch of labor-intensive bones over a bland boneless breast any day.

Now That's Real Thai

We've been eating out a lot this week. I ain't complaining. Especially when we're getting meals like this one.

Pam Real Thai Food on West 49th St. might have just provided the best Thai dinner Margy and I have ever had. We started with these incredible fried fish cakes, spicy with red curry paste and fragrant with lemongrass. They have a unique texture -- dense and not easily cut with a fork (hence the knife), yet tender to the bite. We were delighted to have eight of them, but then we were just as sad to see them go so fast.

We followed those with som tum, which is shredded papaya salad with lime juice and crunchy-chewy peanuts. My goodness. Entrees were prawns with chili sauce and pad kra prow, or crispy duck with basil, garlic, and chilies. (I realized later that we'd unconsciously repeated the duck/shrimp pattern from Monday's Chinese dinner with my mom and sister. But duck isn't something I make at home, so I never need much of an excuse to order it in a restaurant.) The chili sauce for the prawns was unlike any chili sauce I'd had previously. Instead of being sweet and red with a relishlike consistency, it was a gorgeous thick brown paste threaded with basil leaves, fresh and subtly hot. The duck knocked it out of the park -- crispy, spicy, a little salty... I could have stopped yet I ate it until nothing was left.

The ingredients were fresh and handled with care. That plus the level of nuance was what impressed me the most about Pam Thai. If many Thai restaurants paint with primary colors, this place has a full palette of detailed shades, from pale to bright -- and knows how to use a background of rich flavors to spotlight the main ingredient at the foreground.

A Shrimp of Convenience

Today I got the shrimp.

But when I arrived at ShopRite, they had meager choices behind the counter. There was just one kind, previously frozen, at $10 per pound. I remembered my mom mentioning the 2-pound prepackaged bags of frozen shrimp that line the freezers next to the seafood counter. She said they're pretty good, so I checked them out. Twelve bucks for an abundance of shrimp. Why not? Most if not all supermarket shrimp have been frozen anyway.

I basically made a Thai green curry, using Thai Kitchen curry paste out of a jar. Bearing in mind the unexpected success of my recent white dinner, I was trying to make an uptown version with shrimp instead of tofu, but I used a little too much chicken stock and fish sauce to get the same thick consistency. However, it was a tasty, spicy meal, and I had it ready for Margy right after she walked in the door -- with enough for leftovers and some shrimp left in the freezer for another day.

By the way, we liked those bagged shrimp. They might not have been the freshest and most flavorful, but they were good to bathe in a bold-tasting sauce on your average Thursday night. Once I had defrosted them under cold running water and peeled them, they were rather attractive little guys.

Vaguely Southeast Asian

According to an article I read last year, scientists have observed that animals instinctively try to give themselves the types of nutrition that they are lacking. For example, if they've gorged on protein, the next time they feed they will naturally seek roughage, or fat. That was me. I wanted to get Margy and me the things we didn't have in France. Like vegetables.

Mind you, I am not blaming France for this. I'm just saying that we had to let a few things go in order to focus on others.

So I knew I wanted something Asian, butterless, preferably with rice as the only starch. I thought I'd make Margy a squid stir-fry. She loved the idea.

It came out okay. I cooked the squid correctly -- meaning, fast -- which helps. But I was too laissez-faire with the sauce. I couldn't find the Mark Bittman recipe I was looking for as a guide, so I just combined what seemed like the right amounts of the right ingredients (lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, soy sauce, fresh chilies).

It was good, but it wasn't great. Next time I need a better plan, with more exact seasoning ratios. I like the inexact science of cooking, but sometimes it comes back to bite me. The important thing is, we got our vegetables. I had three helpings of green beans.

I hope one day I'll come home from Southeast Asia and want to eat a hamburger and french fries.