It was finally cool enough to turn the stove on again last night and I was craving Thai flavors. I tried my hand at one of my favorite Thai noodle dishes, Pad Kee Mao (also known as “Drunken Noodles”). I stopped by the Farmers’ Market at the EcoTrust before dinner to pick up some goodies to slip into the mix, but the crops are especially plentiful and comely this time of year so I wound up with quite an array of veggies, making my pad kee mao much more of an ingredient onslaught than the real deal usually is. But with farm fresh veggies, is that really a problem?
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I’ve never made this dish before but I had a few things going for me:
1. Lots of field testing in at home and abroad. e ordered this dish in about every food court in Bangkok *and* most Thai restaurants in Portland;
2. Fresh Thai basil in our garden. We currently have 2 bushy Thai basil plants (and 4 more seedlings) in our graden, a key ingredient in Pad Kee Mao; and
3. A lifetime supply of Ban Rai Insanity Peppers, as discussed previously, another key ingredient.

So I figured I should be in pretty good shape, despite my state of ignorance.

Well, the result, while not entirely successful, was at least tasty — and full of fresh veggies. I went wrong in a few different ways:
1. I used shirataki noodles instead of traditional rice noodles. Shirataki noodles are made with japanese yams and through some kind of culinary magic wind up being 0 calories. No kiddin’. So for those who are counting calories, this is an ideal food source (’cause what’s easier to count than zero?). As a replacement for rice noodles, it’s better than one would expect, very like rice noodles, actually, but not as good as the real thing. They are a little chewier, they don’t brown and don’t absorb sauce in the same way.

2. Our Thai basil plants? Not as productive as I would like. So the dish was a little low on basiliciousness.

3. Too much sauce! I dumped it all in at once and then realized it was too much. And, as mentioned above, the noodles really didn’t absorb liquid like rice ones would have.

4. Too many ingredients! Couldn’t get a good char on anything because of pan over-crowding.

Despite the complaints, it was still tasty and now I’m better equipped to try it again.