Tom Yom Shrimp and Noodle Soup

Something that's always disappointed me about DC has been the lack of ethnic culture in the city.  Sure, we have some really great restaurants, but where am I supposed to get my chopped liver? Where can I get a hot stone bi bim bop? And, maybe I'm just from Boston and have always been spoiled, but I've yet to have a really good (and not overpriced) Italian meal - with homemade pasta, fresh seafood, and way over-sized portions.



After being here for a while, I found that there is one ethnic fix that I can't get in the District - but exists just a short drive away (when someone's willing to take me).  Fantastic, authentic (I don't mean orange flavored chicken) Chinese food.  "Chinatown" in DC is a hoax - it mostly has a bunch of chain stores and restaurants (like Legal Seafood and Clyde's) with their names in Chinese.  The real Chinatown exists just north of the District in southern Maryland.



This weekend, the Monkey Scientist and I took a trip up to Wheaton, MD.  We had some really good dim sum at Hollywood East and then made a trip to the H Mart there.  I have to admit, not the best H Mart I've ever been to, but I found nearly everything I needed for several dishes - including this Tom Yom soup.  Tom Yom is one of my favorite soups - Paragon Thai and Spices in Cleveland Park make delicious versions.  I've been wanting to try making my own for a few months now, so I got all of the ingredients I could at H Mart to make it this week!



My Tom Yom Soup broth wasn't as dark or red as the versions I've eaten in restaurants.  I think that this color may come from using dried chilis and frying them with the shallots at the beginning - I'd like to try making this again to see if that works.  The flavor however, was really close - I was actually surprised!  And man oh man is this broth good - sweet, sour, a little bit spicy, and the lemongrass is so unique and brings great depth of flavor.

I decided to add rice noodles to give this soup a little more substance so that we could have it as dinner - Paragon Thai has a version similar to this that they serve as a meal - but if you wanted to serve this as an appetizer you could leave them out.  I also changed the recipe below to use about half as many noodles as I actually used, since they soaked up almost all of the broth, and the broth really is the best part.

You could also add more vegetables at the end if you wanted, but I like the simplicity of this soup with such a complex broth.  Other things that may make sense to add would be chicken and green onions (my store has been out of green onions for a while).  My final review?  This a really great soup that will impress your family and friends.  Take a trip to your local Asian market and make this - you won't regret it!



Tom Yom Shrimp and Noodle Soup
Adapted from Wandering Chopsticks and Tyler Florence

Ingredients
1 lb shrimp with shells and heads
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large shallot, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 inch knob galangal or ginger, minced
2 quarts fish stock (water or chicken stock would work, too)
2 tsp tamarind paste (optional, but add umami)
2 stalks lemongrass, bruised
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar (white or brown)
1 tbsp fish sauce
3 small Vietnamese red chili peppers, diced (more if you like it hot)
2 limes, zested and juiced
4 oz small-width rice stick noodles
1 15-oz can straw mushrooms, drained

Instructions
1. Peel and de-vein shrimp. Set aside both shrimp and the shells in separate bowls.
2. In a heavy pot over medium heat, heat oil. Once hot, add shallots, garlic, and galangal or ginger. Sauté until edges begin turning brown.
3. Add shrimp heads and sauté until pink. Add stock.
4. Mix in tamarind paste, lemongrass, salt, sugar, fish sauce, chili peppers, lime juice and zest. Simmer 1/2 hour.
5. Meanwhile, soak noodles in warm water for 5-10 minutes. Strain.
6. Strain out all of the ingredients from the soup to get a clean broth. Return to a simmer/gentle boil then add shrimp, noodles, and mushrooms. Cook for 5-8 minutes until noodles are soft and shrimp is cooked through. Serve immediately.

Chicken Pad Thai

This weekend, my coworker took me and another coworker shopping up on the Rockville Pike.  My family sold my car when I moved to DC, so my coworker took me to all of the stores I can't access on public transportation.  It was a wonderful day! My absolute favorite of these stops was an Asian market called H-Mart.

H-Mart is AMAZING. It has every ingredient I couldn't find anywhere else, and with great prices! One of the hardest things to find in average grocery stores was tamarind paste - but they had it at H-Mart! And it was only about $2.  And Squid fish sauce is the best kind.  A huge bottle was about $2 as well - a tiny bottle of a much less authentic brand costs me twice as much at my local grocery store.

H-Mart also had the most gorgeous produce I've seen in a long time.  And again, AMAZING prices.  These gorgeous scallions were wide and bright and crisp and only $0.25/bunch.  This is only HALF a bunch. Unbelievable.

The tamarind paste is an absolute necessity in this recipe.  It give it the "pad thai flavor" from the takeout version.  Look for it in your local Asian market, or order it online. (and if you do take a trip to the Asian market, pick up some gochujang too; you just might need it for one of my next recipes! hint hint)

I did adapt the recipe a little to make it chicken instead of shrimp pad thai.  I picked up this Thai Spice Blend on my spice shopping spree at World Market and used it to season the chicken.

I'm obsessed with this spice.  It's warm from the cinnamon but also has an interesting Thai flavor from dried shrimp, along with several other spices.  Even though it has cilantro (ick!) in it, I can't wait to keep using this spice.  If you have a World Market near you, you should pick this up - totally worth $2.99!

The rest of the recipe comes together pretty easily.  Like with other Thai noodle recipes, there are a couple scrambled eggs and some scallions, and of course garlic.

Also, I had green cabbage in the fridge from my cabbage, potato, and leek soup, so I used that instead of Nappa cabbage. It wilted down a lot and worked out great!  Still, if you were going to make this and didn't happen to have green cabbage lying around, Nappa would be the right cabbage to use.

The hardest part of this recipe was stirring all the ingredients together.  It made a total mess of my stove.  I used a spaghetti fork and tongs to get the job done, but it definitely took some careful maneuvering and some time. And some Lysol wipes when all was said and done.

The final product was delicious! I thought it tasted the closest to restaurant pad thai of any homemade recipe I've ever used.  Plus I used barely any oil, so I feel like it was way healthier than getting takeout. I topped it with lots of lime juice and peanuts, which added the extra zing to put it over the top.  It definitely isn't a simple one pot meal, but I think it was worth doing the dishes for!

Chicken Pad Thai
Slightly adapted from the New York Times

Ingredients:

4 ounces medium-width rice stick noodles
2-4 tablespoons peanut oil

2 to 4 tablespoons tamarind paste

1/4 cup fish sauce (nam pla)

1/3 cup honey

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste

1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or tenders

1 tablespoon Thai Spice Blend (from World Market)

1/4 cup chopped scallions

1 garlic clove, minced

2 eggs

1 small head Napa cabbage, shredded (about 4 cups) (or half a large head of green cabbage)

1 cup mung bean sprouts

1/2 cup roasted peanuts, chopped

2 limes, quartered.

Instructions:
1. Put noodles in a large bowl and add boiling water to cover. Let sit until noodles are just tender; check every 5 minutes or so to make sure they do not get too soft. Drain, drizzle with one tablespoon peanut oil to keep from sticking and set aside. Meanwhile, put tamarind paste, fish sauce, honey and vinegar in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and bring just to a simmer. Stir in red pepper flakes and set aside.
2. Season chicken with Thai Spice Blend. Put remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat; when oil shimmers, add the chicken and cook over medium high heat until no longer pink in the center.  Remove the chicken to a plate, but leave the oil in the pan.
3. Add scallions and garlic to the pan and cook for about a minute. Add eggs to pan; once they begin to set, scramble them until just done. Add cabbage and bean sprouts and continue to cook until cabbage begins to wilt, then add the chicken and any juices on the plate.
4. Add drained noodles to pan along with sauce. Toss everything together to coat with tamarind sauce and combine well. When noodles are warmed through, serve, sprinkling each dish with peanuts and garnishing with lime wedges.

Ruth Reichl's Thai-like Noodles

I'm currently reading Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl.  I found it in my parents' basement when they moved out of my childhood home and I loved Comfort Me With Apples - and this book hasn't let me down! I've got to buy Tender at the Bone. Garlic and Sapphires is really entertaining - it chronicles the time she spent as the restaurant critic for the New York Times and the disguises she wears while visiting restaurants.  It also includes recipes from meals she eats or makes throughout the book.

One of those recipes is for Thai-like Noodles.  I had a box of thin rice noodles in my cupboard for a while (I got them on sale and with a coupon), so when I read this recipe I thought it'd be the perfect way to use them.

Another money saving tip - when I only need 1/2 lb of ground pork (or other meat) I ask the butcher at my grocery store to give me a smaller portion than what's out on the shelves.  That way I never end up with frozen meat that I might use who-knows-when.  All you have to do is ask!

Fish sauce, Sriracha and unseasoned rice vinegar are stables in my house.  It's amazing how many Asian recipes you can make with the same simple ingredients.  I happened to have run out of the peanuts I used for the Asian Slaw, so I omitted this one ingredient.

These noodles were pretty easy and turned out tasty!  I recommend using a bigger pan than I did, as a lot of the ingredients hopped overboard while stirring.  It definitely is an easy last minute dinner any night of the week!

Thai-like Noodles

An Americanized version of Thai noodles
From Ruth Reichl

Ingredients:
1/2 pound very thin rice noodles, preferably Thai rice sticks
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup white vinegar (or unseasoned rice vinegar)
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1/2 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound ground pork
4 scallions, white and tender green parts, sliced into 1/2-inch lengths
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
2 limes (juice only)
1/2 cup salted peanuts, finely chopped
1 lime, cut into 6 wedges, for garnish
Sriracha Chili sauce

Directions:
In a large bowl, soak the noodles in hot water to cover for about 20 minutes (or according to package directions, mine only took 8 minutes) or until soft, then drain and set aside.

Combine the sugar, fish sauce and vinegar. Set aside.

In a wok, heat the oil over medium-high heat until it is very hot. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring, just until they change color, about 1minute. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.

Add the garlic to the wok, and as soon as it starts to color and get fragrant, about 30 seconds, add the pork and half of the scallions.Cook just until the pork loses its redness, 2 to 3 minutes, then add drained noodles and mix quickly. Add the fish sauce mixture, reduce the heat to medium and cook 5 to 8 minutes or until the noodles have absorbed all the liquid.

Clear an area of the wok and crack 1 egg into it, breaking the yolk.Tilt the wok to get as thin a sheet of egg as possible and scramble just until set, about 1 minute. Then mix the egg into the noodles.Repeat with the remaining egg. Add the shrimp, remaining scallions and red pepper flakes and mix thoroughly. Add the lime juice and cook,stirring for 1 minute.

Transfer the noodles to a platter and top with a sprinkling of peanuts. Serve with lime wedges, the remaining peanuts and lots of Sriracha.

Notes from RR: Makes about 3 servings, depending on how hungry people are.  I could probably eat this entire amount by myself.  And it's excellent for breakfast the next day. (from yelle: ooo now I can't wait to have it tomorrow morning!)