Cooking With 'Puter: Pad Thai

‘Puter whipped up this batch of Pad Thai
last night, to the acclaim of his family.
It’s an easy recipe and takes about 30-
45 minutes start to finish. Try it!

‘Puter, like most if not all of your Gormogons, loves to cook. ‘Puter enjoys feeding the hungry (a corporal work of mercy).

‘Puter also enjoys cooking because he can finish a task and have a physical, visible end product. In ‘Puter’s day-to-day office grind, negotiating contracts and assessing litigation strategy doesn’t allow him the satisfaction of seeing a finished product very often. Cooking is therefore rewarding and relaxing to ‘Puter.

As our Twitter followers know, ‘Puter and Czar like to share our cooking experiences with our minions. To ‘Puter’s shock and amazement, our minions have not only praised ‘Puter’s cooking, but actually have requested ‘Puter share his recipes. So, at the urging of @greatgrace84 and @CatholicMomVA, here’s ‘Puter’s recipe for Pad Thai, ‘Puter Style.

Pad Thai*

A tiny little recipe from House of ‘Puter

(Now with more color commentary!)

This is a recipe that took shape in several stages. ‘Puter was jonesing for some Thai food, but most of the places around Rochester serve dishes dripping with grease. If ‘Puter wants grease, he goes to Popeye’s, then he feels sick and lives in shame for weeks. Anyway, back to the recipe.

‘Puter pulled this recipe together from an online recipe for spicy Thai peanut sauce. The initial recipe was OK, but not spicy enough for ‘Puter, so he doctored it up. Once ‘Puter got the sauce where he liked it, ‘Puter realized the sauce would be good as a Pad Thai sauce. ‘Puter’d never made Pad Thai before, so back to teh intarwebs for recipe ideas. ‘Puter ended up with this.

For the veggies, substitute in whatever hippie plants you want. ‘Puter just finds the Wegmans prepackaged Asian slaw ridiculously easy and quick. Also, the peanut sauce is good by itself. Well, not by itself, but on spring rolls, pot stickers, shu mai, etc. Not that ‘Puter’d ever sit down and eat an entire thing of peanut sauce himeself. Or go to Popeye’s and gorge on grease. /hangs head //leaves in shame

Last night, ‘Puter grilled some boneless, skinless chicken breasts, shredded them, coated them with a bit of the peanut sauce and laid them on top for a bit of protein-y goodness. ‘Puter assumes you could do the same with tofu, flash frying it in a hot wok (veggie/canola oil heated until just smoking), but you’d have to press the tofu first (put on paper towels on a jelly roll pan, paper towels on top, another jelly roll pan, then a really heavy book (Joy of Cooking?) for 4-6 hours, changing paper towels) until the tofu dries out. That’s a lot of work, not to mention tofu is for hippies like Czar.

Without further ado, ‘Puter’s recipe follows.

Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

·       1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (contains peanuts, for those of you who (a) have a peanut allergy and (b) are complete morons)
·       1/4 cup hot water
·       2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
·       2 tablespoons palm sugar or light brown sugar
·       2 tablespoons chili garlic sauce
·       1 tablespoon soy sauce
·       1 tablespoon rice vinegar or white vinegar
·       1 tablespoon lime juice
·       1-2 teaspoons sesame oil, to taste
·       1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
·       1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (omit if you want, I don’t add them usually)
·       2 scallions, thinly sliced
·       Kosher salt, to taste

Directions

In a medium bowl, whisk together peanut butter and hot water.

Stir in curry paste, sugar, chili garlic sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, lime juice, garlic, red pepper flakes, and scallions. Season with salt to taste. Use immediately or store in an airtight container in refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Pad Thai

Ingredients

· 1 package (16 oz.) Asian wide rice noodles (about fettuccini/linguini sized)

· ~2 tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil

· ~½ package Wegmans Asian slaw

· 4 scallions, thinly sliced

· Bean sprouts

· Chopped peanuts, to taste (contains peanuts, for those of you who (a) have a peanut allergy and (b) are complete morons)

Directions

Cook noodles according to package instructions. Drain. Add a bit of oil to noodles to keep them from congealing into a sticky noodle ball. Experience is a bitch of a teacher. Try to time the noodles to finish about the same time the stir fry finishes.

Heat wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add vegetable/peanut oil and bring to temperature. Add Asian slaw (and whatever other veggies you want (or hippie tofu crumbles)) to wok, and stir fry until done. The slaw should remain crisp. If you’re doing thicker veggies, I’d steam or blanch them first, throwing them into the stir fry just for flavor’s sake rather than cooking them in the stir fry.

When noodles and stir fry are done, toss the noodles, the veggies and the peanut sauce in the wok or large bowl until combined. Try not to break the noodles. Place on platter, top with bean sprouts, then chopped peanuts, then sliced scallions. If you’ve gone to the trouble of making meat or tofu, add on top.

As ‘Puter noted, this recipe is a work in progress, and to date seems very forgiving. ‘Puter thinks for the pound of noodles, a bit more peanut sauce was needed, but it’s fine as is. If you figure out something that works better or tastes better, let ‘Puter know.

Bone appetite!

*@greatgrace84 tells ‘Puter this recipe is gluten free, but ‘Puter has no clue, so don’t take his word for it, eat it, get horribly sick and blame ‘Puter.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.

The Gormogons

Cooking With ‘Puter: Pad Thai