Asian Mardi Gras

Last Friday I went to an AWESOME Asian noodle workshop at KitchenArt.  I came back with a very full belly and some awesome recipes.

I didn't have a chance to get to the Asian Market until yesterday, so I decided we'd be celebrating Mardi Gras Thai style with some homemade Pad Thai.

Do you have an Asian Market in your town?  I love ours.  It's always full of exotic and interesting things.  I love Asian packaging (especially Japonese things), so sometimes it's fun just to look.  It can be a bit intimidating unless you read Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, Japanese, or any of the other dozen languages you'll find on the shelves.  But most of the packaging comes with at least a little English, sometimes with extra-funny translations, so just get over your fears and get in there.

Our market is stuffed to the gills with items, so it's not always so fun to have little boys with me on these trips.  But I decided to risk it and strapped Cole into his stroller and warned Josh of the dire consequences of touching anything.  It worked.

Here are a few things that found their way into my basket this time:

A lifetime supply of fish sauce - extra smelly but extra essential in any Thai cooking.

A lifetime supply of Mirin, a Japanese sweet cooking wine.

Ginger in a tube.  Because I always seem to need fresh ginger but never have it.  Plus, it's ginger in a tube.  Awesome.

Wasabi in a tube.  Because you can't make Japanese food without wasabi.  In a tube.  (Can you tell I get a kick out of food in a tube?)

The rice noodles for my Pad Thai.  I lurve rice noodles. 

A little dried seaweed for a soba noodle dish I want to make.  Nope, I will not be making any sushi anytime soon.  I like sushi, but don't want to have to make it myself.

Some dashi powder.  Dashi is fish stock.  So this tiny jar is also probably a lifetime supply for my family!

Japanese soba (buckwheat) noodles.  So pretty.  And soooo yummy!  I love buckwheat noodles.  I should have been born in Japan.

It's hard to take pictures while you're making Asian food because it all happens so fast.  It's best to have everything chopped and prepared as much as you can ahead of time.

Those are some random dumplings I found at the store.  They say VeggieMondoo on them, so I thought they were vegetable dumplings.  Wrong - they had what we think was chopped pork in them.  They were pretty good, although they definitely could have used some type of sauce.

Anywho, here's the final Pad Thai.

Oh wait - I forgot one of the most important parts: fresh lime wedges.  There we go.

Oh man.  I love Pad Thai.  I could eat it every night and be a happy girl.  And I might have to, since this recipe made a TON. 

The only down side is that my kitchen smelled like fish sauce for the rest of the evening.  Not exactly pleasant.  But it was a price I was willing to pay!