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Monday, August 03, 2009

Cooking

Last month I took a class on Thai cooking at Leah's store. It was very tasty, and demystified Pad Thai to the point where I think I can make it (haven't tried yet -- it requires a run out to the Asian grocery store in Wheaton). In any case, I was inspired enough to buy a wok this weekend, which I seasoned yesterday and tried out for the first time tonight.

I made a veggie stir fry with ginger from a recipe I found online, and it was pretty good. It also reminded me how much I hate following recipes. I can't seem to keep more than one step/measurement in my mind at once, so I'm forever compulsively checking the ingredient list or instructions. It makes for a very halting, non-relaxing time in the kitchen. But I do really enjoy cooking once I get to the point of knowing a recipe by heart, or even better, mastering the general principles involved in a dish and then improvising from there. Of course, to date, I have only achieved the latter with lasagna and quiche. (And grilled cheese, but I don't think that counts.) I should be able to add stir-frying in short order -- although the recipe I made tonight had a few extra wrinkles, it's pretty simple in general.

2 comments:

ReeD said...

Yeah! Stir fry is super easy to play around with, and often hard to go wrong with (well... at least as far as the vegetable part is concerned.) I kind of wing pad thai myself—you can buy pre-made pad thai sauce in a jar at even TJ's... I just add it after cooking the veggies and the noodles, and then fry everyone together. YUM!

Teague said...

Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to fooling around with different stir fry variations -- the wok makes it way easier, and really improves the results versus when I tried it in a skillet.

I tried making pad Thai once with pre-made sauce, and it didn't come out that well...I think it was partly my fault, but I do want to try making it the "real" way because it was delicious in the class I took...