Tuesday 1 October 2013

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Pad-Thai, sort of






You know that bit in Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy, where Arthur keeps trying to get a cup of tea from the machine on that improbability space craft and it keeps on giving him 'something that is almost entirely, but not quite, exactly unlike tea'? This is my 'something that is almost entirely, but not quite, exactly unlike Pad-Thai'.

I love a good stir-fry, but I generally get the hankering for one right before I make dinner, so there isn't time to pre-plan it shopping-wise. So tonight I got together all the bits and pieces I had that seemed appropriate and made the closest approximation to Pad-Thai that I could. And it tasted AMAZING. So I'm passing on the recipe to you guys. Don't say I don't do anything for you!

Ingredients:

Sauce:
A quarter cup of stock
Three tablespoons of soy sauce
A clove of garlic, chopped
One and a half tablespoons of black bean sauce
One and a half tablespoons of honey
Three tablespoons of 'sushi seasoning' (rice vinegar)
A squeeze of lemon juice

The rest:
A 200g packet of Pad Thai noodles

100g of tofu (I buy an organic, garlic-marinated, ready-to-go brand) sliced
A tablespoon and a half of peanut oil
An onion, sliced
A carrot, cut into thin strips
A capsicum (or a combination of coloured capsicums) cut into thin strips
Eight ears of asparagus, chopped
Half a zucchini, cut in thin strips
A handful of snow-peas, sliced
Any other veggies you might like/have, including bean sprouts, maybe baby corn, seriously, it's a veggie free for all
Half a lemon
A third cup of chopped corriander

Two tablespoons of coarsely ground peanuts to serve.

Instructions:

First, boil a pot of water to cook the pad noodles in. Leave it simmering, you want it ready to go soon.

Now, put all the ingredients for the sauce in a small saucepan and heat it gently, stirring. Don't boil it, just get it hot and mix the flavours.

Prep all your veggies and heat up the peanut oil in a deep pan. Make it quite hot, we want to stir fry here!

Now drop all the veggies in and stir, frying, for about five minutes. Not too long!





Drop the noodles in the boiling water, cooking as per the cooking instructions (which should take about five minutes). Keep stirring the veggies, we're multi-tasking.

Drain the noodles and mix them and the tofu in to the stir-fried veggies, and turn down the heat.





Pour in the sauce, mix thoroughly, and then leave to cook on a low heat so the flavours mingle.





Turn the heat down, and mix in the lemon juice and corriander.





Divide into bowls, and top with crushed peanuts.

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