A Few Good things I Cooked this Week
I made three dinners this week that I felt like actually talking about and/or recording for posterity so I can make them again. Without any further ado:
Panang-adjacent curry with Andouille and Ham
On Monday, I had a bowl of Panang curry at a Thai restaurant and realized I didn’t really know what Panang curry was - my current extremely simplified understanding is that it’s similar to red curry but typically more mild, thicker, and nuttier due to the use of peanuts. Whatever the deal is, the stuff I got was really tasty, so when I needed to cook dinner on Tuesday I decided to try making something similar. The only proteins I had on hand were leftover from making Jambalaya last week, but I figured about four ounces each smoked ham and Andouille sausage aren’t too crazy to throw in a curry. As these were browning off in a pan, I sliced up a couple small onions and threw the slices in. Turns out there wasn’t much in terms of produce in the kitchen at the time so I just went all in on the onions and I stand by that decision. I threw in a few generous spoonfulls of red curry paste which I fried for a bit before adding in a can of coconut milk plus a can’s worth of vegetable stock (so like a spoonfull of roasted vegetable Better than Boullion went into the now empty coconut milk can which was filled up with water and then dumped into the pot). Finally, I added a large scoop of creamy peanut butter, some shredded coconut, and a squirt of coconut cream. I let this all stew together for a bit then ate it over steamed rice. Honestly, this worked really well. I was worred that the smokiness from the ham wouldn’t play nice with the coconut and peanut butter, but they blended nicely. I was also a little concerned that the spice blend in the Andouille wouldn’t mesh with the blend in the curry paste, but it didn’t clash at all. Probably won’t go out of my way to make this again but will definitely do more Thai curries with peanut butter.
Red Sauce with Meat and Eggs
This one was largely taken from the NYT “No-Recipe Recipes” book. Basically a meat-heavy red sauce that you crack a few eggs into like a shakshuka. Sliced up somewhere between eight and twelve ounces of thick-cut bacon and tossed it in a pot to render out some fat. Once it had come along decently, in went two-ish sliced onions, some minced garlic, and crushed red pepper, followed soon after by a can of whole peeled tomatoes, which were shortly crushed into a thick sauce. I think I added some chicken stock to thin things out, and then spent a while reducing it to thicken it back up. I also tore up maybe a half dozen corn tortillas and threw the pieces in to soak up the liquids and partially dissolve, adding some nice texture and body to the sauce. I definitely threw in some oregano and salt/pepper at some point, and finished it up with a handful of shredded cheddar. Once I had a tasty meat sauce of the consistency I was looking for, I tried making some divots to crack eggs into, somewhat unsuccessfully. I ended up more or less just cracking four eggs on top of the sauce before covering the pot so they could poach before scooping it out into bowls and serving. Super tasty, cooked in one pot, and very straightforward to make. Definitely gonna be doing this one again sometime.
Three-Cup Chicken
Alright, so, I always thought this dish was called “chicken with three cup sauce”, because that’s what my favorite hole-in-the-wall Chinese place called it. However, everywhere else seems to call it three-cup chicken, so I’m trying to get that to stick in my brain as the name of this dish. Anyway, I mostly followed the Woks of Life recipe for this, though I definitely eyeballed (and in some cases just made up) amounts for most of the ingredients. Pretty easy and extremely tasty stuff, though. Cubed chicken thighs go in a hot wok to sear. Once they’ve been colored up a bit, toss in a generous amount of garlic, ginger, thai chili, scallion whites, and some seasame oil. After a minute, chase them with shaoxing wine, a little water, light+dark soy sauce, and sugar. Let that stew for a while, eventually adding some dried basil (a substitute for the fresh sweet basil the recipe calls for but I was lacking). The chicken was definitely done cooking before I finished reducing the sauce so I took it out and blasted the sauce over high heat to drive off some moisture. I also added some cornstarch slurry to thicken it up. Once it was the ideal consistency, chicken went back in for a quick toss along with the scallion greens before being served over rice. Genuinely delicious. This has always been a take-out favorite of mine but now it will be going in the regular rotation. This sauce seems like it would be illegally good on fried chicken wings, so I’m definitely gonna have to give that a shot sometime soon.
Anyway, that’s about it - nothing too crazy, but it was some good food. Time to figure out the plan for next week.