OMG Good Spicy Shrimp Salad

You know how you make some things and you're actually sad, knowing that you will finish the plate and it'll be all gone? That's how I felt about this salad I made for lunch. OMG, so good, and definitely worth the little bit of prep work.

A tip--don't skimp. Fresh herbs are super cheap at farmer's markets right now (as are shallots and garlic). Once you start cooking from fresh, you'll notice a huge difference. This is one of those dishes that demands fresh because it creats a flavor explosion in your mouth.

This is from an Emeril recipe. The original made 4 servings, but it was just me today, so I edited it to fit one full plate.

Spicy Thai Shrimp Salad

1 cup mixed greens (I hate iceberg lettuce and used mixed greens)

1/4 medium cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
1 mango, peeled, seeded and sliced (the recipe called for one mango total but I love mangos so I used a whole one for one serving)
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice (about half a lime)
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 teaspoon fish sauce
4 teaspoons Palm sugar, or light brown sugar (and here's where I diverted...I put half in the dressing, half on the shrimp. I also didn't have Palm sugar so I used light brown)
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, divided
1/2 teaspoon minced Serrano chilies
2-3 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
1/4 pound medium shrimp, peeled
1/2 teaspoon Emeril's Essence
dash salt
1 tablespoon chiffonade fresh mint, garnish

Lay the lettuce leaves across a large platter. Arrange the cucumber, mango slices and shallots over the lettuce.

In a blender, combine the lime juice, 2 teaspoons of the brown/Palm sugar, shallots, fish sauce, garlic, 1/2 of the minced cilantro, chiles. (Emeril called for adding the oil here; I didn't. I kept the dressing low fat). Blend on high speed until well combined and the sugar is dissolved.

In a bowl, toss the shrimp with the Essence, salt, and remaining sugar to coat. Heat a wok or large, heavy, skillet over high heat. Add the oil and when very hot, add the shrimp and sear until cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Remove from the pan.

Arrange the shrimp decoratively over the greens and mango and drizzle with the dressing. Garnish with the mint and reserved cilantro and serve.

SOOOOOOO good. Very fresh and very yummy. I only used a 1/2 teaspoon of Essence...I don't like it highly spicy.

Shirley

Another Pad Thai option

I make Pad Thai pretty often (and order it all the time when we go out to Thai restaurants). It's the kind of recipe that no one makes the same way, and the kind I vary every time depending on what I have on hand for ingredients.


The recipe I had was yummy, but IMO, a tad dull. I wanted to jazz it up a bit, and while browsing other Thai recipes, I came up with an idea...


Why not flavor the chicken as I'm poaching it, which will add to the overall flavor of the dish? That's exactly what I did, and then I used the poaching liquid to cook the noodles, so I had the same flavor throughout.

BTW, I normally add shredded cabbage to my Pad Thai but it was pouring rain out and I sure as heck wasn't going to the store for cabbage in that. The silly teenager wouldn't go either. Geez, kids. ;-) So this is sans cabbage, but still good.

BTW, this is for my cooking challenge with my good friend and amazing cook Julie Sellers. Check out her blog for lots of great recipes! We're cooking one new recipe a week between here and Christmas. Also, if you like to see how people used to have to cook, read this interesting blog on cooking in the 1800s.


Shirley's Pad Thai


2 boneless chicken breasts
2 slices lime
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and quartered
2 cloves garlic
8 ounces rice vermicelli noodles (they're sometimes labeled Pad Thai noodles. Basically, a flat, slightly wide Asian noodle will work).
2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
4 ounces carrots, julienned
2 scallions, diced
2 teaspoons lime juice (use fresh; you already have the limes in the poaching liquid)
2 tablespoons soy sauce (I buy mine at the Asian foods store. It's SOOO much cheaper)
1-3 tablespoons Pad Thai sauce (also at the Asian foods store. This is a to-taste kind of thing)
1/4 cup roughly chopped peanuts
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped rough


Heat a pan of water, add the lime slices, ginger and garlic, then add chicken. Boil chicken until just cooked through, then remove chicken and add rice noodles to the boiling water. Cook about 7 minutes, then drain (throw out the lime, ginger and garlic).


In a wok, heat the oil. Add the carrots and saute until slightly limp, about 3 minutes. Add scallions, saute one minute. Add chicken, then add sauce ingredients (lime juice, soy sauce, Pad Thai sauce) and toss until it thickens on the veggies and chicken. Taste to see if you need more Pad Thai sauce. Add noodles, a little at a time, and toss until coated with sauce. Garnish with peanuts and cilantro.


The Pad Thai sauce in the bottle is a bit spicy, so definitely taste as you go. But this was yummy, and way more flavorful than my other recipe. I can't wait to have it for lunch today :-)

A side note: When I had this the next day for lunch, I added a little Sesame Oil on top (one drizzle since it has a lot of flavor). PERFECT. It was the exact right final touch.

Oh, and while I was in the Asian foods store, I picked up Papaya Salad Dressing. OMG, yummy!! I made a salad yesterday with lettuce, tomato, sliced mango and chopped cilantro, then drizzled a bit of that on top. Could have eaten ten servings :-)


Shirley

Chinese Restaurant Brought Home

Three new recipes tonight...and all three were a huge hit. :-)

First, a mango chicken that my son had asked me to replicate from the My Thai restaurant we ate at. I couldn't quite replicate that, but I came close, and actually liked this version WAY better. I did have to altar the recipe a little. Those kaffir lime leaves are not exactly all over the place in Indiana stores, so I did as the reviews suggested and used lime zest instead. And, because my kids are not super fans of heat, I tripled the brown sugar in the recipe. I also cooked the cashews just a bit to soften them. I used peanut oil for cooking, too, to add a bit more flavor.

I had been looking and looking, and trying several different fried rice recipes before I came across this one. Truly the best one yet. Easiest, and closest to real Chinese restaurant versions. I don't use ham, and used a bag of frozen peas and carrots, plus skipped the egg (my kids won't eat it anyway). I doubled the recipe and it came out just fine. I also go a little heavier on the soy, but my family loves soy, so that worked out well here because we're fans of the soy sauce :-).

Then I made my teen daughter make this Thai Broccoli Salad. We ended up heating it more at the end, and adding a tad more soy and sesame oil, just to thin out the sauce, but it was a HUGE hit. It's definitely better warm than cold (at least in my opinion) and went off the plates so fast, we should have made more.

A lot of work involved (honestly, I have no idea how those Chinese restaurants that do those buffets do it), but it was WELL worth it. And here I thought that ambition to quit cooking was going to end.

I also made for breakfast these INCREDIBLE banana-peanut-butterscotch pancakes. You were supposed to bake the pancakes and make them from scratch. Yeah, well, it's a tad too early in the morning for all that. Instead, I made box pancakes and did the sauce from scratch. I'll see if I can find the sauce and post that tomorrow or the next day.

Shirley

An Oriental Flair Last Night

I'm thinking I need to start taking pictures of my meals, especially the more successful ones. But that would involve actually pausing to think before I dive into my plate and usually, I'm starving and practically shoving the kids out of the way to get to the dishes ;-)


Nah, I do dish them up first. Honest.



Last night was a WW Pad Thai recipe. Not too bad at all. Not quite the real thing but close enough that I think if I could get myself to a Thai restaurant, have some of the real thing again and take a little leftover home, I could tinker enough to perfect it. I don't eat Pad Thai often enough to remember the real thing perfectly, so I couldn't tinker with this one. But it was good, enough that both DH and I had seconds. My son looked at it, said it tasted "funny" and only ate the chicken.


Ah well, you can't please them all with every meal.

Then I made my mother's recipe for Green Rice. I can't believe I've forgotten it for the last couple of years. It's quite good, and where my kids are HUGE white rice fans, this one went over much better. Next time, I'll add more Parmesan cheese, because anything with cheese in it makes a friend in my house. I cook it in a rice cooker and honestly have no idea how to cook rice without a rice cooker, so change your liquids accordingly to cook it the regular way.


Green Rice


3 cups white rice (I use jasmine rice; I buy it at the oriental store)
3 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups diced spinach (I used frozen, and defrosted it a bit first)
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup scallions, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 tablespoons butter (or light butter if you're watching calories)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese


Cook the rice with the chicken stock in the rice cooker. When done, mix in everything else :-). Done!


The book due at the end of the month is coming along well. So well that I started a proposal for another book and started plotting another proposal with my daughter. My daughter's getting older now, old enough to start reading my Harlequin Romances (not all of them, but the one I just wrote is tame enough for her to read and she said it didn't stink, which is about her highest compliment for her mom, and she was literally grabbing the pages out of my hand as fast as I was editing them, so I take it she was hooked). She was way into plotting this other proposal, so I told her if it sold, I'd give her a teeny portion of the advance. That had her eyes lighting up and sent her off into mall dream land. Anyway, there's a long, long road ahead before that might happen, so she better not spend her Abercrombie & Fitch dollars just yet.


Gee, if I could only get her to clean her room that easily ;-)


Hope all of you who are dieting along with me are doing well!!

Oh, and check out the new feature on my website: Behind the Book!


Shirley

Bonus Holiday Recipe: Spicy Thai Coconut Shrimp Soup

Can't remember if I posted this one before or not, but hey, here it is again :-)

And of course, as with all my recipes, there's a story behind this. Half my family is Laotian. Why, you ask...because my parents are giving people. My Dad, who served in Vietnam, always wanted to give back--and so, when I was 11, my family sponsored a Laotian family of three. Over the course of my life, my parents sponsored more than 30 Laotians into this country, and many of them have become part of my extended family. My brother's mother (long story :-) has been teaching me a few Laotian and Thai dishes. While I'm no chef, believe me, this is one of my favorites for the holidays, next to my mom's lobster stew (which is in THE ANGEL CRAVED LOBSTER).

Spicy Thai Coconut Shrimp Soup

2 cans coconut milk (in the Asian section of the grocery store; they now make a lite version, if you're counting calories)
1 can asparagus spears, cut up
1 cup frozen cut green beans, par-cooked
1-2 cups frozen shrimp, tails removed (I like a lot of shrimp, so I add a lot!)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red chili paste (here's the heat, so go easy on this; you can always add more if you like a lot of heat
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce or soy sauce (fish sauce is an Asian staple; find it in the Asian section of the store. If you don't like it, you can substitute soy sauce).

Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce to a simmer until the shrimp is defrosted. Be sure that red chili paste is well mixed in, too ;-)

This happens to be my lunch today, BTW. And was yesterday, too. I'm in a soup kind of mood :-)

Shirley