Food

• Nam Pla Prik

  In addition to the Extra-Crispy Fried Eggs, I also made the optional Nam Pla Prik recipe to accompany the Thai-Style Stir-Fried Ground Pork with Basil.

  Like the pork with basil recipe, I’m familiar with nam pla prik. My usual approach is to slice some Thai chilies and put them in some fish sauce and let that sit while I make whatever I‘m cooking that evening. I figured I would do Lopez-Alt’s recipe with the optional garlic and palm sugar.

  The biggest departure from this recipe and my usual approach is that in this recipe everything but the fish sauce and lime juice is pounded in a mortar and pestle. The result is a smoother sauce instead of fish sauce with chili and perhaps garlic slices floating in it.

  I think the paste led to a more complex tasting sauce. Still plenty hot, still plenty salty, but there's a bit more nuance to it. Is it worth the time spent pulverizing? Maybe if I‘m feeling the time and energy to be a bit more special with it, but if I just want some nam pla prik without worrying about it, it’s hard to beat the ease of steeping sliced chilies in fish sauce.

  I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.

• Extra-Crispy Fried Eggs

  As an optional serving accompaniment to Thai-Style Stir-Fried Ground Pork with Basil, I also made the Extra-Crispy Fried Eggs recipe from The Wok.

  On a general note, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with frying eggs in my wok. I don’t know why, but for some reason, the eggs keep sticking. I don’t have this problem at all with my carbon steel skillet, so I don’t really know what’s going wrong. I have given my wok a good cleaning and re-seasoning, and that has helped, but not eliminated the problem.

  All that to say: I had issues with the eggs sticking to the wok.

  Outside of the frustration, the eggs were tasty. The kids didn’t try them, opting instead for their preferred very runny, very not-crispy fried eggs.

  I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.

• Thai-Style Stir-Fried Ground Pork with Basil (Pad Bai Horapa or Pad Ka-Prao)

  This week’s The Wok dish was Thai-Style Stir-Fried Ground Pork with Basil. This one is not unfamiliar to me as I already have a Chicken with Holy Basil recipe from Rachel Cooks Thai that we really like. I also have a Beef with Holy Basil recipe from David Thompson’s Thai Food cookbook, but I haven’t made that one yet. All that to say this is a known dish to me, as opposed to some of the other recipes I’ve made so far from The Wok.

  Lopez-Alt’s recipe admittedly breaks from “tradition” with the addition of long beans, Chinese dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Both of my other recipes call for Thai dark soy sauce/black soy sauce, but that is a very different sauce from Chinese dark soy sauce, and the Rachel Cooks Thai recipe also calls for oyster sauce. I understand that Thai cuisine is highly accommodating for tastes, so it’s not a big deal to have various adjustments.

  Lopez-Alt also calls for hand-minced lean pork “for best results”, but also allows for ground pork for ease. I opted for the suggested hand-mincing for my first try at this recipe.

  The Wok version calls for making a rough paste with the garlic, shallots, and chilies, which contrasts with the Rachel Cooks Thai version which only chops them, but is consistent with David Thompson’s recipe. After that it’s a straightforward stir-fry: stir-fry the aromatics, stir-fry the protein, add the sauce, remove from heat and toss in the basil.

  Confusingly, the directions completely omit when to add the long beans. From the accompanying pictures, they appear to go in between the aromatics and protein.

  I made it with the optional long beans, dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce and served it with the optional nam pla prik and extra-crispy fried eggs. I figured if I’m making Lopez-Alt’s version of this, I’m going to make it all the way.

  I thought the end result was fine. I have certainly enjoyed eating the leftovers in the fridge. I think in the future I’ll use ground pork to save myself the time, but also because the hand-minced lean pork had a certain toughness to it that I didn’t enjoy. Even with those adjustments, I think I prefer the Rachel Cooks Thai version. My wife enjoyed it, my son tried it but declared that it was too spicy, and my daughter did not try it at all.

  I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.

• March 15, 2023, 7:46 p.m.

  

  Cooking Mandarin pancakes for the first time ever. It’s two pancakes stacked with a bit of oil in the middle. They get rolled out together, then cooked together, then peeled apart for two very thin pancakes.

• Moo Shu (Moo Shi) Mushrooms and Mandarin Pancakes

  With this recipe, I’m realizing I’ve never had moo shu pork, because I’ve never had mandarin pancakes before and apparently that’s how the dish is served. Now that I’ve had it at home, I’d really like to try it at a restaurant!

  Both the Moo Shu Mushrooms and Mandarin Pancakes recipes were straightforward, but doing them together made me wish for a helper in the kitchen. I got the pancake dough made and resting half an hour before starting the rest of dinner. Prepped everything for the moo shu mushrooms and then rolled out and cooked the pancakes.

  The Mandarin pancakes are rolled out, then one is brushed with oil, another is placed on top, and then they’re rolled out together. The pancake stack is then cooked on a skillet until it blisters, flipped until the other side blisters, then the two pancakes are peeled apart. The result is too very thin pancakes.

  The moo shu mushrooms is typical for what has been covered in the cookbook so far: stir fry the ingredients in batches, then combine at the end. The recipe called for a new-to-me ingredient and an ingredient that I’ve purchased once before but don’t keep on hand. The new-to-me ingredient was daylily buds. Happily, my local Asian market had them, but I did have to ask for help. They were in a completely unlabeled bag, just a picture of two Chinese lanterns. The ingredient that I’ve worked with once before was wood ear mushrooms. Both are purchased dried and then soaked in hot water before cooking.

  The dish is eaten like a taco with a bit of hoisin sauce on the pancake and the moo shu mushrooms as the filling. The wood ear mushrooms have a rather distinct toughness to them. I found the daylily buds to not carry a whole lot of flavor on their own. They blended right into the rest of the dish.

  My wife and I both enjoyed it. My daughter ate some plain pancakes. My son picked out some pork and egg from the moo shu mushrooms, rolled them in a pancake, and dipped that in soy sauce. He said it was good.

  I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.