Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Thai Cooking: What Do I Do With The Leftover Stuff?

So, let's say you saw yesterday's meal and went out and bought all the stuff to make the shrimp with green curry, but tonight you want to do something different. Here are a few ideas that I came up with recently.

First, there is the old standby of swapping out a few ingredients in a dish you normally make, and you can fancy it up by calling it Thai (insert dish here). I'm not above it. Besides, it makes people think you're smart and a really amazing chef.

For instance, I took some chayote and cilantro, added it so some tuna salad, and BAM! Thai Tuna Salad. There's no limit to what you can't bullshit and call Thai Something Or Other.

Another idea is you can take a bunch of those vegetables, dice them up, and stuff a porkchop with them.



Here, I used zucchini, carrots, eggplant, scallion, peanuts, onions, peppers, and cilantro for the stuffing.

As for the pork, I bought a thick cut pork chop and marinated it in hoisin, which is sort of like an Asian barbeque sauce.  Then I took a sharp knife, cut a pocket in the side of the chop and stuffed it. I put a few toothpicks in to secure the stuffing and then I brown the chop on both sides.

Once browned, I take a casserole dish and lay my chops in there. Then, I take whatever leftover stuffing there is and pile that into the dish (you can never have enough stuffing, in my opinion), and then cover it in foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350. After the first 30 minutes, remove the foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

Last night, I was in the mood for something lighter, and didn't feel like witing a very long time after a long day of work. I had some basa to use up (basa is a mild whitefish). Feel free to use tilapia or another similar fish of your liking here.



For this dish, I heated up some green curry sauce and coated the bottom of a skillet with it. When it was heated up, I laid the fish in there and cooked it for 5 minutes on each side. Then I took some eggplant, zucchini, and baby bok choy and stir fried that in olive oil and crushed red chili flakes. Then, I served that up over some leftover rice and chopped cilantro, which I stirred together and reheated.


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