Pad Thai & Gai Larb

We've had some major computer issues this week, actually need to have our hard drive replaced evidently, but hopefully I can still pull off this post.

This week for Gutsy Cooks Club Pad Thai & Papaya & Mango salad from the Illustrated Kitchen Bible cookbook were on the menu. Love Pad Thai it's a regularly made dish in our home. And the salad sounded perfect. Sadly  both papaya & pomegranate aren't accessible this week so although we will make this salad at some point it won't be this week with the pad Thai. Instead we made a Gai Larb salad to accompany our dish.

It was Friday night we were both a bit beat from the week and having eaten out the night before and big dinner party plans at a friend's was on the agenda for Saturday cooking at home on this Friday night sounded fine for both of us.

I purchased a bottle of our 'fav' Mirth Chardonnay from Corvidae Vintners to drink while cooking tonight. And it was just what we were in the mood for.

G made the Gai Larb ( a minty thai chicken salad.) A fellow Thai enthusiast friend introduced us to larb about ten years ago. He always said he judged whether a Thai restaurant was good or not based on their larb dishes. We usually crave larb in the summer when it's too hot to cook and our mint is taking over the garden.

This particular recipe comes from The Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking Cookbook by Mai Pham. Tonight we used organic ground chicken. Sometimes we used chicken breast and dice it ourselves. Using ground takes away an extra step.

The dressing is made with Chile flakes, paprika, brown sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, lemongrass and mint leaves.

We usually put it on a bed of cabbage. This night we did it on a bed of green leaf lettuce instead.

I made the Pad Thai. First gathered the ingredients so regularly used within Thai cooking; Fish Sauce & Oyster Sauce.

I soaked the flat rice noodles in hot water while I prepped the veggies for the Pad Thai.

Chopped some red chiles, red onion (instead of shallots) & scallions.

I rinsed of the deveined & cleaned shrimp that I purchased at Metropolitan Market.

I first quick stir fried the shrimp with the red chile flakes and cilantro and then sat them aside.

Added the red onion to the wok

 before scrambling the eggs with some sugar.

Next the sauces were added along with lime juice, the noodles and the shrimp.

We served our Thai dinner with Milbrandt Reisling. The perfect sweetness to offset the spicy Pad Thai & Larb.

We enjoyed our Thai dinner as we usually do. Can't go wrong with these fresh ingredients and wonderful flavors.