Cooking: Thai Street Vendors

I love Thai food, and so does Adam. There are nights when I have to stay late at work for some kind of special evening event (like this week's Christmas program), and there's not enough time to go home, cook dinner, and return to school, so those are the nights we order out. Those are the nights we enjoy being "forced" to order from the Thai restaurant down the street.

We usually get the same things: Chicken Pad See Ew and Tom Kha Gai soup. That soup is so good. Spicy, sour, sweet, rich, hot, and tangy-- all in one delicious bowl. It's a mixture of coconut milk, lemongrass, Thai ginger, chicken, mushrooms, chilies, chicken broth, and lime juice. And you may remember that I tried cooking Pad See Ew awhile ago, and that it didn't turn out too badly, and I have since cooked it again, and it turned out quite nicely (although for once in my life I think I used too much garlic). You may also remember that "Pad See Ew" literally means "stir-fried with soy sauce". I laughed when I found that out. Who knew it meant something so generic? But it's comfort food, baby. Delicious comfort food.

Coming around to the main point of this post, I was on a search one day for another Pad See Ew recipe, just to make comparisons to the recipe I had already tried. While searching the internet, I discovered a site that featured videos of Thai street vendors cooking traditional Thai dishes. I thought to myself, I've hit the jackpot! Videos of Thai people cooking Thai food! And sure enough, there is a video of how to cook Pad See Ew, not to mention dozens of others.

Cooking food from a foreign culture for the first few times can be time-consuming because of unfamiliar ingredients and unfamiliar cooking techniques. For that reason, I haven't been able to try any of the recipes on the site besides the Pad See Ew, but I'm excited to try in the future. If you are up for a challenge, try one out. And if you do, please tell me how the cooking process went, and how the recipe turned out!

In the myriad of videos, you can find Pad Thai, Garlic Shrimp, a recipe for Thai curry paste (yum), Thai sticky rice, Pork Satay, my favorite Tom Kha Gai soup, Thai iced tea, and so many more.


Here's the link to the complete series of videos: Thai street vendor cooking

Click the caption to the photo to access the video specifically for Pad See Ew. 

Pad See Ew

Remember, if you try a recipe, let me know how it turns out!


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