Along with cooking we also learned how to carve these carrots out of flowers. Can you tell which one is Shefali’s and which one is mine? (hint: mine looks like it was carved using a knife and not my teeth)

I’m sure if you saw the previous post about pad thai, you’re aware of how highly I regard Thai food, both for its preparation and its dynamic flavors. Also, I’m a fan of employing badly shot vacation video from almost two years ago to give the few lucky readers of this blog an opportunity to savor more Thai food and watch Shefali and I stumble through the preparation of some basic Thai dishes.  You see, the summer before last, before Kaya and her voracious appetite made themselves known – actually, I think Shef was in the early stages of pregnancy with K (aka “The Eater”) – we were fortunate to find ourselves in Chiang Mai, Thailand, recuperating from our trip to India.  Believe me, Northern Thailand is the place to go for relaxing and eating.  As full fledged tourists, we enrolled in a one day cooking class at the Siam Rice Thai Cookery School. Now, I fancy myself as somewhat knowledgeable about food and the way its prepared – Asian food in particular. Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I’m ASIAN? Sheeit! So I didn’t know how much I’d really get out of this class. Well, feed me some humble pie, because I got a whole lot of spicy goodness out of it. It was great!  The recipes were obviously dumbed down for farang students, but what really came through (bubbled up to the surface as it were) was the importance of using the freshest ingredients and cooking things quickly and with the intensity of high eat to seal in flavors. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but some of dishes I cooked in this class, I’d consider among the best Thai food I’ve eaten.  So without further ado, please enjoy these two videos which chronicle both our trip to the market and our cooking class. Please enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

About a month ago Shefali, Kaya, and I had the pleasure of spending almost twenty hours on two planes (with one layover) to travel 8,651 miles to Bangkok, exactly twelve hours ahead (timewise), where we would spend four short days before another two and a half hour flight (on one plane) to Hong Kong for another four short days. Then we came home. End of story. Actually no. We went to Bangkok and Hong Kong to spend our winter break with Shefali’s family in Bangkok and my family in Hong Kong. But more on that in a future (possible) post wherein I just talk about all the “first” foods that Kaya ate. Yeah, I’m that dad.

This post is about pad thai, specifically the pad thai found at Luang Pha Pad Thai restaurant in Bangkok. You know, that place on Maha Chai Road, a stone’s throw from the Wat Saket? Yeah that one. Ok, to be honest, we had some insider knowledge. Shefali’s sister  (not Thai) and her husband (Thai) told us about this place a year and a half ago when we visited them. And boy were we appreciative.  The flavor of that pad thai and the simple but elegant way it was prepared were etched into my memory. Plus I took lots of photos.

Shef wants this pad thai and bad… This is from our first trip to Luang Pha.

This small woman is a giant among cooks

But seriously, watching this diminutive woman wielding this massive wok reminded me of what a pleasure it is to watch someone who is really good at what they do.   Each  gesture and motion is effortless, the perfect expression of thought into action. There is no wasted effort – efficiency epitomized.  Or, maybe it’s because this is her job and she does it everyday. In any case, the results are ridiculously good.  So, this past trip, Shefali and I brought her mom and her sis (and of course Kaya) along to experience quite possibly the perfect pad thai.  Please enjoy some photos and be sure to watch the video above which shows this awesome cook in action.  You might even learn how to cook some real pad thai.  Though good luck finding the shrimp fat oil…

Pork and green chili stew = happy

Hey Everybody! Long time no blog. Yeah, life has a way of taking over when one isn’t blogging. And also, one is kind of lazy. But one – okay me, well I’m back and I’ve brought with me an actual cooking video. As we find ourselves firmly entrenched in fall with winter on the horizon, I give to you the gift of chile verde. It’s a spicy and savory pork and chili stew – I prefer the Spanish spelling when naming the dish, the Anglo spelling when talking about actual chilis. It’s the perfect meal to keep you warm and satisfied on the inside and happy to be alive. Yeah, it’s pretty powerful stuff. Also, it’s bien rico (rather, extremely delicious).

I first encountered chile verde as a wee lad growing up in San Jose, CA when my parents took my sister and I to our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Burro.  Now having experienced a lot of good (and terrible – in NYC for sure) Mexican food, I’m not sure El Burro would necessarily hold up as a great Mexican restaurant. But there’s something about that dimly lit cavern of a restaurant – with it’s big leather bucket seats,  the pictures of bull fighters and rustic country scenes on the walls and the tortillas chips served with the most watery and bland (in retrospect) salsa – that holds a special place in my heart.  I remember my dad would always order the chile verde which consisted of tender cubes of pork served in a sea of really hot (temperature-wise) mildly spicy green sauce.  In between mouthfuls of chorizo enchilada (my go to dish at the time) I remember tasting the stewed pork and thinking, “not bad, not bad at all!”  Since those formative years, chile verde has become one of my go to dishes both when I order it, say stuffed inside a chimichanga or as a stand alone stew that I love to cook myself.  So, what follows is my version of chile verde,  a recipe that I’ve kind of developed over the last few years through trial and error and tasting of other versions of chile verde. For example, I used to not use tomatillos but after eating chile verde with tomatillos,  I now find them to be a a vital ingredient imparting the necessary acid or tartness that counter balances the spiciness of the chili and the richness of the pork.  So without further ado, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients: (as usual amounts are approximate)
1 head of garlic
2 mid sized onions
5-6 poblano chilis
1 1/2 lbs of tomatillos (can use tomatillo salsa)
1 1/2 pounds of potatoes
3-4 carrots
4 lbs of pork shoulder meat
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Oregano to taste
2-3 tablespoons of vinegar (for marinating the pork)

This is how I do it:

I luckily grew up in a household with a loving mother who happened to be a great cook.  Lacking her cooking prowess, I finally asked my mom to teach my wife and me how to make one of her best dishes: Chicken Chow Mein.  My mom agreed and showed up to our place ready to cook!  She didn’t know we would be putting her instructions on video and posting it to the rest of the world.  After a few grumbles about her appearance, she agreed to be on camera and started instructing like a pro.

We picked this dish because I have never found Chow Mein like hers.  She uses standard size noodles, but pan fries them until they are crispy.  When the crispy noodles soak in her incredible gravy/sauce, magical things happen.  I am very happy we got her instructions on video and will be shocked if we can ever duplicate what she does so well.

- Jason W.

Latkes: deep fried and delicious... and nutritious because there was a little bit of zucchini in them.

This past weekend was a weekend of good eating.  Chief among the the good eats were the latkes at Adam and Alicia’s apartment for Latke Fest 2011 (Hebrew calender 5772). The call came later then usual (we were all secretly worried that perhaps there would be no call at all) but when the call came, we answered.   According to Adam, this was the fifth annual latke get together.  Unfortunately, there was no duck fat frying as there was last year. Instead, Niels brought figs and parmesan wrapped in prosciutto – not the most kosher of appetizers -  but delicious nonetheless.  The latkes, as usual, were divine.  Fried to golden perfection and served with the requisite sour cream and apple sauce they were a crispy, savory and mildly sweet delight, I sense G-D him/herself was beaming down in approval.  Oh yeah and there was matzo ball soup and Katie made these ridiculous macaroons half dipped in chocolate that were like mounds candy bars for rich people (hmmm… candy for the 1%). I left that night with the cholesterol of an eighty year old man. Holiday food kicks ass!  Check out the vid for a sense of what I’m talking about.  Unfortunately you can’t smell the deep fried goodness, which on second thought is probably a good thing for your clothes.

Tourists of the desert: Shefali and I show off the latest look from the Thar desert. Okay, maybe not so glamorous but we did avoid major sunburn.

As I mentioned in the last post, one of the more touristy and totally worth it things we did in Rajasthan was an overnight camel trek in the Thar desert outside if Jaisalmer.  It was basically like backpacking except with camels doing all the hard work of carrying all of our stuff and also doing all the walking. Oh don’t get me wrong.  We’re still hardcore.  I mean it was really hot – being the desert and all. We had to drink a lot of warm/hot plasticky water that had been  roasting in the sun, not to mention having to reapply sunblock like seven times. Also, riding camels is really hard on the groins.

Shefali and I with our camel trek guide/ cook extraordinaire: Amaan

Fortunately, we had an excellent guide named Amaan who prepared all of our meals and was generally, a very upstanding young man. And by young I mean he was only 20 or 21 and newly married at that. Please enjoy the following video of my our amazing camel trek lunch prepared by Amaan and eaten by us.

It’s fair to say that by the end of RFT 2011 tour I had pretty serious case of fort fatigue.  I mean they were amazing places to behold, but after the umpteenth viewing of the various Rajputs’ dedazzled private chambers or ornate public meeting hall, I just couldn’t find it in myself too get excited. But fortunately, we had ample food to fuel us on our site seeing adventures.  I can’t necessarily put my finger on what Rajasthani food is and how it differs so much from other Indian cuisines.  We ate a lot of thali dinners with their combindation of dhal, rice, chapati or naan and veggies. Sometimes we’d seek out nonveg places to get our fix of chicken tikka or lamb saag (spinach).  While it didn’t blow me away, there were some stand out meals.  I especially enjoyed the all you can eat thali dinners at a very local restaurant called Chandan Shree,  in Jaisalmer and which became our go to spot in the desert town. I also enjoyed the spicy lamb and chicken at Kashmiri Spice Dhaba, a dive joint in Jodhpur where I stuffed my face sweating into my food while Shefali got more and more heated (pissed off) by the unwanted oggling of a drunken customer seated behind me.  Also, the snack foods (samosas, aloo tikki and other deep fried treats) were really good.  Please enjoy the following photos of some of the more memorable meals.